Bound
by JoMarchWrites
Summary: People form bonds everyday. Family, spouses, partners, roommates, and friends. Some bonds are harder to break than others. There are monsters, though, in this world, who will try with fervor to sever those miraculous bonds. It takes people who are bound too deeply, to the soul, to defeat them. Luckily, there are four people just right for the job. EO, Caskett, M for future chapters
1. Chapter 1

_**This is the beginning of an AU Crossover. Hope it works.**_

 _ **Law and Order: SVU is the intellectual property of Dick Wolf. Castle is the intellectual property of Andrew W. Marlowe. The use of the characters, settings, and plotlines is not malicious. This is a work of fiction.**_

The loud, obnoxious rock music filtering in from her suitemate's bedroom made it nearly impossible for Alexis Castle to concentrate. She plugged her ears with everything from cotton to swimmer's wax, and still, the loud wailing and drumming drowned out her thoughts and made her head ache. With a frustrated screech, she tossed her textbook onto her bed and jetted into the common room.

"Kathleen!" she yelled, pounding on the second bedroom door. "Kat, come on! I have a mid-term tomorrow!"

"Hey," a voice behind her made her turn, her red hair whipping around like flames.

Her eyes bulged. "You're...you're not in your room?"

Kathleen, her suitemate, shook her head and laughed. "Obviously not." Her eyes narrowed. "But...someone sure the hell is." She dropped the grocery bags she'd been carrying onto the table at her left, and then walked over to Alexis. Key in hand. she jammed it into the lock and turned the knob, taking one step into the room with Alexis right behind her.

Both sets of eyes widened. Both right hands flew over mouths. Both girls screamed at the top of their lungs.

Alexis immediately pushed Kathleen back and slammed the door, shooting a petrified look at her friend. "What...what was..."

"That was a dead body." Kathleen, staring just as horrified at Alexis, shoved her hand into her pocket and grabbed her cell phone. "I gotta call my dad."

"Your dad?" Alexis scoffed, pulling out her phone as well. "What's daddy dearest gonna do? I'm calling my stepmother, she's a detective she'll..."

Kathleen snapped back. "My dad's a cop, too, Lex! You know this!" She took a few steps away from Alexis when her father answered his phone.

"Kate?" Alexis said when someone answered her call, still shaking. "I...I need you and dad. Now. Please? There's...we found a..." she paused and took a slow breath. "Someone was killed in my dorm."

After hanging up their respective calls, Kathleen and Alexis, still trembling, sat together on the sofa staring at the white bedroom door. "Where were you?" Alexis asked Kathleen, not looking at her.

"I woke up early, I...I wanted to make us pancakes but we didn't...I went to the Lion's Den to get eggs..." Kathleen babbled. "The line wound around the entire store, I..." she blinked again. She sniffled, trying not to cry. "Do you know who that is? That girl in there?"

Alexis shook her head quickly. "I didn't really get a good look, and don't you dare ask me to go back in there."

"Wasn't gonna," Kathleen said. With trembling fingers, she reached a hand out to Alexis, who gratefully took it, and the two friends finally let the fear hit them. Short, soft sobs filled the room, but still, they were overshadowed by the music coming from Kathleen's bedroom.

They heard the common room's doorknob jiggle, and they froze. "Do you think it's the killer?" Kathleen asked in a harsh whisper.

"Coming back to the scene of the crime," Alexis whispered back, eyes wide. "My dad says they always do." Her eyes were glued to the door and when it opened, she and Kathleen jumped and clutched each other, screaming.

"Hey! Hey," a tall, dark haired man in jeans and a gray hooded sweatshirt ran over to Kathleen, pulling her into his arms. "Shh," he soothed, his eyes closing as he cradled her. "It's okay, honey."

"Dad!" Alexis yelped, leaping off of the couch when she spotted her father in the now-crowded room. She ran to him, throwing her arms around him in relief.

Several uniformed officers, half a dozen detectives in suits, and two medical examiners scattered to the four corners of the suite, searching for clues and collecting evidence that would lead to the answers the roommates so desperately needed.

That is, until the two M.E.'s walked toward the crime scene. They froze, stiffened, and stared at each other.

"Oh," breathed a woman with brown hair, pulled back into a ponytail. "Uh, we didn't exactly think about..."

"Doctor Warner," a short, sassy woman in a blue jacket said curtly.

Melinda Warner pulled on her own NYPD issue windbreaker and eyed the younger woman with a smirk. "Doctor Parish."

"I think this one is mine, Melinda, you can take your boys and go back to the One-Six," Lanie Parish said, her lips curled into a half-sneer and one eyebrow crooked.

Melinda looked at the younger doctor as though she was speaking German. "I don't think so. I outrank you, so I think you're the one that..."

"Excuse me," a detective in a light brown suit jutted in between the dueling doctors. He made an apologetice face as he scratched at his short, light hair. "Is there a reason you can't...both go in there? Work together?" He cleared his throat and pointed across the room. "I think we're all here for the same reason. We got family here."

Melinda and Lanie turned to where Detective Ryan had pointed, and their hearts sank. Kathleen was being consoled and questioned by her father, Detective Elliot Stabler, and his partner Detective Olivia Benson. Mere feet away, Alexis was crying in the arms of her father, renowned mystery writer Richard Castle and his partner, and wife, Detective Kate Beckett. These were people that meant more to the good doctors than how much credit they earn on a case.

Lanie was the first to fold. "After you, Doc." She held out a blue-latex-covered hand, gesturing toward the closed white door.

Melinda nodded solemnly, her own gloved fingers wrapping around the knob. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes as she led Lanie into the room.

An eerie silence enveloped the room. Kathleen realized one of the doctors must have turned off her radio, and a sense of calm washed over the people scattered about.

"I told you," Alexis said to her father, "I don't know who she is. At least, I don't know if I know. I just...saw her laying there...naked...the blood, I...I just closed the door and called you."

Beckett, offering as much of a smile as she could, rubbed her stepdaughter's back and said, "Stay with your father, sweetie. I will be right back." She exhaled harshly and walked across the room, catching the eyes of Detective Benson. She crooked a finger at the older, higher-ranked woman.

Olivia whispered something into her partner's ear, gave Kathleen a reassuring smile, and stepped toward Beckett. "What have you got?" she asked.

"Probably same as you," Beckett offered. She bit her lip as she said, "Alexis said there's a security system, cameras in the hall and at the back fire doors. We should be able to get something off the tapes. I'll send Ryan and Esposito out to the main security building."

Olivia nodded and folded her arms. "Weird," she said with a nervous laugh. "Seeing you outside of a seminar, I mean." She cocked her head to one side and glanced at Castle, talking to his daughter. "You married him?"

"Yeah," Beckett said, unable to get the smile off of her face. "It took a while, but...I married him."

"You look happy," Olivia told her.

Beckett's smile widened. "I am happy, Benson," she replied, nodding. "What about you? I haven't talked to you since that convention in Jersey. Anything change with you and..."

"Kathleen doesn't know who the vic is," Olivia spat quickly, changing the subject. "She was gone all morning at the campus grocery store. When she came back, she found Alexis banging on her bedroom door. They found the vic on the bed like that. I don't think we have a reason to consider the girls suspects."

Beckett eyed Olivia carefully before crossing her arms. "No," she said. "I wasn't...they weren't suspects in my eyes, I promise you that."

Olivia nodded and sighed, looking over her shoulder at her partner and his daughter. "Why here? Why this room, and these girls?"

"I still think it's a strange coincidence that, out of all the freshman dorms at Columbia, two daughters of cops wind up rooming together," Beckett mused. "You think someone targeted the room? The girls, specifically?"

"To get to one of us, maybe," Olivia said, letting her hands fall to her hips. "Or one of you."

 _ **Reviews are always enjoyable**_

 _ **Peace and love**_

 _ **Jo**_


	2. Chapter 2

_**Lifeline.**_

 _ **Law and Order: SVU is the intellectual property of Dick Wolf. Castle is the intellectual property of Andrew W. Marlowe. The use of the characters, settings, and plotlines is not malicious. This is a work of fiction.**_

"How is she?" Olivia asked, almost too quietly, handing Elliot a cup of hot coffee.

He stared at the green mermaid for a full minute before answering. "How would you be?"

"Okay," she sighed, sitting next to him on the leather couch in the captain's office. She glanced through the window, grimacing as she saw Kathleen, still crying, giving her statement to Fin. "Talk to me."

"I have nothing to say," he shrugged, finally lifting the cup to his lips. He raised his cup and nodded his thanks at her as he swallowed.

She ran a frustrated hand through her hair and exhaled harshly. "Seriously, El, what's going on with you? You won't talk to me unless it's about work, you haven't shaved in over a week, you look like you've been sleeping on a bed of nails, and now this..."

He shot his red eyes toward her. "When I figure out what to say, and how to say it, I'll talk to you. All right?" He scoffed and took another sip of his coffee. "How's what's his name?"

Rolling her eyes, she leaned back and crossed her arms. "No longer in the picture," she said. "Not that it should come as a surprise by now."

He looked at her again, this time with softened features, and he handed her his coffee. Watching with a small smile as she sipped it, he said, "His loss, really." He blinked. "You deserve better than him, anyway."

"Do I, El?" she asked, narrow-eyed. "I mean, really, do I? I'm never home, I have shitty hours, and most of my time is spent with you, so...maybe this is what I deserve, because no one else deserves to come second to...this." She gestured around the room, indicating her job, her life. There was a moment of silence before she looked back at him. "They would, you know. Come second. Or third, or fourth, or..."

"Who are you telling," he laughed, taking his coffee back. "Why do you think I'm..." he stopped. "This job...and, uh, us, we...tend to not make it easy to have other relationships."

"Says the man who's been married since puberty," she teased, pulling the cup of coffee out of his hands and taking a long gulp.

He closed his eyes and sighed, and then spoke. "Says the man who's getting divorced."

She choked on the coughing, sputtering and gagging before finally taking a deep breath. She stared with wide eyes. "What?"

He bit his lip and nodded, gently taking the almost-empty cup from her. He sipped it, swallowed, and said, "Yeah, that's...that's what's been up with me. I haven't been sleeping in a bed, and my couch might as well be a bed of nails. I haven't shaved in over a week because my razor is at the bottom of a cardboard box in my trunk. And I haven't told you because...I don't want pity, and I don't want you to do what you did last time. Don't go running to Kathy convincing her to give me another chance, or talking her out of it, because it's not her choice this time."

"You...why?" she asked as she squinted at him, reaching for the coffee but missing as he lifted it to his own lips. "I thought..."

He chuckled as he swallowed and handed her the cup. "You thought I had the perfect life? Perfect marriage, perfect family?"

"Something like that..." she grumbled, closing her eyes and downing the last of the coffee. She was bit stunned when he ripped the cup out of her hands and tossed it across the room, into a trash bin.

He shook his head and stretched his arms out along the back of the couch, his right hand flopping onto her right shoulder. He gave it a squeeze and said, "Sometimes, Benson, you're wrong." He tilted his head. "This has been a long time coming, and if I'm being honest it should have happened a long time ago."

She felt awful, but she couldn't tell if the tightness in her chest was guilt or relief. "I'm sorry, I..."

"No, no," he shook his head fast. "Don't. You thought you were helping, saving me, and, Liv, I love you for that, but this time...there's nothing worth saving, okay?" He looked at her and sighed. "We're all going to be much better off once this is...over."

"You sure this is really...what you want?" she asked him, and when she saw his lips curl into the closest thing to a smile he'd given her in days, she smiled back and nodded. She scraped her teeth along her bottom lip before attempting to ask another question. "Do the kids..."

"Know?" he finished for her. "Yeah, yeah, they all know." He met her eyes and said, "Oh, uh, Dickie...he's taking it hard, and you know, his first thought is always..."

She snorted and rolled her eyes again. "Great," she moaned. "Well, I could never tell if he hated me to begin with, so if he thinks I'm sleeping with you, I guess, It doesn't matter."

"It matters," he said, giving her shoulder another squeeze.

As if she'd only just realized he was touching her, she turned her eyes to his hand. "Why do you say that?" she asked him, still staring at his hand on her shoulder, something resembling a grin gracing her lips.

"Because," he shrugged, "Something like that...I don't want him believing that...not unless it was true." He immediately regretted the words as he heard himself say them. "I mean, ya know, you're...you would never do that, you're not a...I just don't want him getting the wrong idea of the kind of woman you are."

She turned to look at him and laughed, for the first time in a long while, the kind of laugh that reached her eyes and made her throw her head back. "Nice save, Stabler," she said, shaking her head.

Chuckling to hide his embarrassment, he scratched the back of his head with his left hand. "Caught that, huh?"

"Mmm-hmmm," she intoned with a nod, still laughing. Taking a breath and calming, she said, "We can just forget that whole..."

"No, Liv," he interrupted, a new seriousness in both his voice and his expression. "We can't."

She opened her mouth to ask what he meant by that, but the door behind them opened. Fin walked in, followed by Detective Beckett and Richard Castle.

Fin looked at Olivia, then Elliot, then back to Olivia. "Both girls had the same story," he said, handing files to Olivia.

Beckett cleared her throat and folded her arms. "We took turns asking the same questions, and their answers never changed, so...they've been cleared."

Elliot looked at Fin, seeing something in his eyes. "What aren't you telling us?"

"I've been asking them that for the last twenty minutes," Castle said, his voice low. "They wouldn't tell me until...well, until we were all together."

"You were right, Liv," Fin said, handing over another file. "This wasn't a coincidence."

Olivia furrowed her brow and opened the brown folder, scanning the pages, but nothing jumped out at her. She shook her head and handed it to Elliot, hoping something would make sense to him.

"Nothing really..." he looked up and shrugged before handing the file to Castle. "Are we supposed to know the girl? I've never heard that name before..."

"I have," Castle said, looking up. "Emily Dodd. She writes children's books." He noticed the odd looks he was getting. "Well, not this Emily Dodd, of course! Another Emily Dodd...but I just...heard the name...before...so why is this not a coincidence?"

Beckett looked at him and laughed softly, shaking her head. "Because, Castle, Laney found that note in the victim's mouth." She pointed to the small plastic evidence back that had been stapled on the inside of the folder.

Elliot snatched the file back from Castle and read the note. " 'The first of many. Revenge is sweet, but infamy is sweeter. Two birds, one stone,' what does this mean?"

"Best we can say right now is the perp is someone you pissed off, Stabler," Fin said. "They musta thought that since your kid's roommate was Castle's girl, he'd write about this in one of his stories."

"Stories..." Castle snipped. "Novels. Award winning, commended, mystery novels, thank you."

Fin raised an eyebrow at Castle. "Yeah, yeah, whatever man."

"Question is," Beckett spoke, taking the file back from Elliot, "Who would be out for blood, like this?"

Fin laughed and shoved his hands in his pockets. "With Stabler's hot head? Half of New York."

"Hey," Elliot snapped, glaring at Fin.

Beckett looked at Olivia, exasperated. "You have to deal with this?"

"Every day," Olivia replied. She slipped away from the couch, instantly feeling the cold spot on her shoulder where Elliot's hand had been. "We can start with the ones who've been recently released or paroled, someone who still has a grudge against us."

"Us?" Elliot blinked up at her. "Kathleen was targeted...this is about..."

"Us," she repeated, more firmly. "Anything you did to piss off this asshole, I was right by your side when you did it, wasn't I? Anything you said, I was there, egging you on. I'm just as responsible for any backlash you get from the bastards we put away."

Elliot was left completely speechless, and could do little more than stare at her as she and Beckett walked out of the room.

Fin shook his head and followed after them, leaving Castle and Elliot alone in the Captain's office.

"So," Castle said, turning to Elliot, "How long have you two been married?"

Elliot shook himself out of his daze and looked at Castle. "What?"

Castle pointed at Elliot, and then at the door, "You and Detective Benson." He made a face and then said, "Even their names are similar. Benson...Beckett. They have a lot in common, you know. Attitude, gorgeous, tough as nails with a sweet spot only, like, two people in the world know. Parent issues, troubled youth...I mean, everything, right down to winning the hearts of their partners."

Elliot had been giving Castle a narrow-eyed, skeptical glare. "What are you talking about?"

"You...isn't it obvious?" Castle said, confused. "She loves you."

 _ **Reviews are always enjoyable**_

 _ **Peace and love**_

 _ **Jo**_


	3. Chapter 3

_**Revelation.**_

 _ **Law and Order: SVU is the intellectual property of Dick Wolf. Castle is the intellectual property of Andrew W. Marlowe. The use of the characters, settings, and plotlines is not malicious. This is a work of fiction.**_

"We've gone through everything," Olivia said, rubbing her eyes. She covered her mouth and yawned, her eyes squeezing shut. She cleared her throat, rubbed her neck a bit, and sighed. "Anyone who has a reason to be this pissed off at us is still in jail, or dead."

Elliot rose from his spot on her lumpy couch, wandered over to her kitchen, and poured cold coffee from the pot into two chipped mugs. He made a mental note to buy her new ones. Carefully, he carried them back over to her and sat as gingerly as he could so he wouldn't spill. "Here," he said, handing her one cup.

"Thanks," she said, sipping gratefully, but grimacing at the stale taste.

He watched her eyes close and open again, and he tried to see something in them that he'd either never noticed or ignored. He couldn't get Castle's words out of his head. _She loves you._

"Do I have something in my teeth?" she asked, raising one eyebrow and smirking a bit.

"What?" He flushed and took a gulp of his coffee. "No, no, I...uh..."

"You were staring at me," she told him, putting her coffee down on the glass table in front of her. "Why?"

He shook his head and rolled a kink out of his neck. "What are we missing?"

She exhaled harshly and fell backward against the sofa. "I have no idea." She crossed her arms and pursed her lips. "Maybe it's not a perp." She looked at him and shrugged. "Maybe it's a vic. I mean, we don't always get the bad guy, and living with the knowledge that their attacker is still out there somewhere would be enough to drive anyone crazy."

"Can you honestly see any of our vics becoming a perp?" he asked, raising a skeptical brow. "A killer?"

She bit the corner of her lower lip. "No," she said, "I guess not."

"Didn't think so," he chuckled. He took another sip of his coffee, then narrowed his eyes at her. "You, uh, you never told me...how you feel about what happened with what's-his-name."

"How I feel?" she scoffed. "I wasn't in the relationship long enough to feel anything," she told him. "You, on the other hand..." she shifted her body toward him and brought her knees up onto the couch. She leaned her elbow against the back of the sofa and rested her head against her hand. "Are you okay? The divorce...can't be easy on you. Do you need to talk about..."

"Nah," he said, casually cool. "I'm all right, really. It was...my choice this time. It wasn't...fair to either of us. Like you said, ya know, this job...doesn't make having a personal life easy. I think it't really why you slept with Cassidy. And why you were with Eckerson. And Porter." He felt his nostrils flare with every name that left his lips. "They got it. They understood. They were in the same boat."

"They were assholes," she added with a laugh. "They all wanted more from it than I did."

"Why?" he asked. He saw her eyes flare and he realized he shouldn't have asked.

She licked her lips and scraped her teeth along her bottom one. "I...I don't know how to answer that."

"I know Eckerson proposed," he said, moving toward her with new intention. "Don't lie to me, Liv, I know he did."

With a furrowed brow, she put her feet back down on the ground and straightened up. "So what if he did?"

"Why did you turn him down?" he asked, his head tilted and one hand slinking toward her knee. His eyes were boring into hers.

She felt her heart pound and her pulse speed up, but she tried to remain still and calm. "Why...why are you asking? Why now? It was years..."

"Just tell me, okay?" he was getting antsy now, part of him knowing he was prying and the other part feeling as though this information was somehow owed to him. "We never talked about it."

"He had a death wish, El," she scoffed, passing him a plausible and valid reason, though it was only half of it. "He didn't think, he was too spontaneous and was always running after the next thrill, the next death-defying adventure, I...I couldn't live with that."

"Yet...when it's me...You run into the fire with me," he told her, denying her logic. "What about Porter?"

"Oh, God, you know all about that," she said bitterly. "The man is a loose cannon, a liar, manipulative, and he proved to you and me both that I really didn't mean that much to him." She shook her head and crossed her arms again. "Where is all this coming from?"

He inched closer to her, his left hand moving up her leg and landing on her knee. "Did I..." he paused to take a breath, as if building up the nerve he needed to ask the rest of the question. He inhaled again and looked into her eyes. "Was it because of me?"

"Oh, my God," she gasped, irritated. "Are you...you really do have an ego problem!" She pushed his hand away from her and shot up off the couch.

"No." He rose just as fast as she did and reached for her. "No, no, Liv, I...I'm only asking because...something Castle said that made me think that maybe I'm getting divorced for the same reason..."

he was interrupted by the shrill sound of his phone ringing. He held her gaze, though it wasn't a very pleasant one, as he reached into his pocket to answer it.

Hers rang then, too, and without taking her eyes off of Elliot's, she grabbed her phone off of the coffee table and tapped ans swiped. "Benson," she snapped, her current mood evident in her tone. "No, sir. Yeah. Okay, we're on the way." She turned her back to Elliot, knowing he'd been given the same instructions from whoever had called him.

"Liv," he called as she opened her front door, "This...this conversation isn't over."

She took a deep breath as she dropped her phone into her jacket pocket and turned to look at him. "Yeah, I know." As she walked out, with Elliot behind her, she wondered if what Castle had said to him had anything to do with what Beckett had said to her.

 _ **Reviews are always enjoyable**_

 _ **Peace and love**_

 _ **Jo**_


	4. Chapter 4

_**Remiss.**_

 _ **Law and Order: SVU is the intellectual property of Dick Wolf. Castle is the intellectual property of Andrew W. Marlowe. The use of the characters, settings, and plotlines is not malicious. This is a work of fiction.**_

"Her name is what?" Castle asked, squinting slightly and turning his head toward the left, as if maybe he hadn't quite heard correctly.

Olivia crossed her arms as she watched Melinda Warner and Lanie Parish hovering over the victim's bloody body. "Jackie Delaney-Roberts. It's hyphenated."

"J. D. Robb..." Castle mumbled. He ran a hand across his chin.

"What was that?" Beckett looked at him quizzically.

"It's, uh, the name of another writer...a fellow mystery novelist," Castle spoke a bit louder. "Nora Roberts? You've heard of her?"

Olivia's eyes widened. She scoffed and said, "Yeah, the name rings a bell." She looked at Elliot, who grinned. Everyone knew who it was.

"She writes mostly romance, yeah, but she also writes mystery novels under the pen-name J.D. Robb," Castle continued, gesturing wildly with his hands. "I know her, we...we came to blows over a character and plot line once, hers hadn't even been published yet, so I don't know where she got the idea that I..."

"Castle," Beckett interrupted, holding up a hand and smirking. "What's your point?"

Castle pointed toward the lifeless young woman. "Jackie Delaney...J.D...Robb...Roberts? I'm not so sure the target here is Stabler." He looked at Beckett. "I think it's me."

Elliot rolled his eyes. "I think you're grasping at straws, you egomaniac. Since this whole thing started, you have handed us one conspiracy theory after another. Really, is anything you say based on facts?"

Castle stared at Elliot for a moment. "Yes," he said firmly. "I'm a writer, Detective. I have a very good eye for detail, and I am a master of subtext. It's my job to know the thoughts and motives behind others' words and actions." He looked toward Beckett. "The first victim, she had the same name as a children's writer. I used to read those books to Alexis. This time, it's the name of a friend, a colleague."

"Maybe the bastard's after both of you," Lanie called out. "I got something here you all need to see." She waved a gloved hand at them.

As the quartet stepped closer to the body, Melinda Warner knelt down and pointed at the victim's neck. "Ligature marks, smooth, very little texture. I'm thinking a silk neck-tie."

"This was crumpled up and shoved in her mouth," Lanie said, handing Beckett a torn photograph.

"It's the two of you," Beckett said, handing the photo to Olivia, who immediately turned to Elliot.

She narrowed her eyes and shook her head. "The Governer's Ball, last year," she said.

"Yeah, we were there," Castle said. "Sat at the Mayor's table."

Lanie made an unimpressed face, then pointed to Olivia and said, "Turn it over."

Olivia flipped the tattered picture around, and squinted to read the smudged and wrinkled writing. "We all try. And try as we might to control things, sometimes bad things get in and it's not our fault."

"I wrote that!" Castle exclaimed. "It's from _Heat Wave_..." his eyes widened. Then he smirked. "It was a pivotal scene between Nikki Heat and Jameson Rook, when the latter tries to console the former over a lost lead on the case. It's the first time they..."

"Castle!" Beckett snapped. She rolled her eyes at him and shook her head with a small laugh. She turned toward Olivia and Elliot. "Well, at least now we have a jumping off point. Who could the two of you possibly have in common," she said, pointing a finger back and forth from Castle to Elliot. "Or...three of you, I mean, you're in this picture, too, Benson."

Olivia scraped her teeth over her bottom lip. "Yeah, uh, Elliot, can we talk...over there...for a second?"

Elliot nodded and followed Olivia toward the far side of the room near the bedroom door. "What's up?"

"This picture...it's, uh...do you remember what happened that night?" She drew her eyes toward his slowly, cautiously making contact.

He cleared his throat and ran a hand down his face. "I was wondering if you did," he said. "Remember...I mean." He nodded. "We drank. A lot." He smiled. "Munch puked in the punch bowl." He lowered his eyes a bit sheepishly. "I kissed you."

"It was one hall of a kiss," she said with a chuckle. She sobered, then, and shook her head. "It was...whatever it was...do you think that's what this is about?"

He stared at her for a moment. Then he laughed and threw his hands up. "No, Liv, I do not think some psycho is killing people with the same name as Castle's pen pals because I kissed you." He moved closer to her. "No one even saw that, we were at your place, in the dark, alone." He scratched at his chin. "I never told anyone, and up until now I figured you didn't remember it. And I know what you're thinking, okay? No. That has nothing to do with what's going on with me and Kathy. I...I thought you forgot, I chalked it up to being trashed."

"I wasn't trashed," she said softly, eyeing him.

He blinked a few times. "Neither was I."

She opened her mouth to say something else, but Melinda spoke first. "Detectives? A word?"

Olivia looked at Elliot and nodded, knowing they'd just added another topic to their unfinished conversation, and they walked together back toward the body. "What is it?"

Melinda knelt down by the body again, this time grabbing a shoulder and tugging, rolling the victim up a bit. She used her free hand to point at the tattoo on the victim's back. "The first victim had the same tattoo...in a much less visible place."

"When you get her cleaned up, Mel, can you send me a few pictures of that?" She turned to Elliot. "Tattoo shops, it's a place to start," she said, then looked at Beckett. "We take the pictures to the shops in the city, see if we get the artist."

"Two dead girls, both with the same tattoo..." Castle said, humming. "So either we have a guy targeting people who have that tattoo, or it's just a coincidence, or we're after the guy who inked them."

"That's a lot of 'ors,' there, pal," Elliot said.

Castle nodded once, then said, "Life is filled with 'ors,' Elliot. It's our job to decide which ones become 'ands' and which become missed opportunities. I think you know what I mean."

Elliot furrowed his brow, glanced toward Olivia, then looked back at Castle. "You are really starting to creep me out."

 _ **Reviews are always enjoyable**_

 _ **Peace and love**_

 _ **Jo**_


	5. Chapter 5

_**Confess.**_

 _ **Law and Order: SVU is the intellectual property of Dick Wolf. Castle is the intellectual property of Andrew W. Marlowe. The use of the characters, settings, and plotlines is not malicious. This is a work of fiction.**_

"You okay?" Olivia asked, raising one eyebrow at Elliot. She yawned as she nudged a carton of Chinese take-out closer to his end of the coffee table.

He shrugged as he lifted a pair of chopsticks to his lips, letting the kung pao beef fall into his mouth. "I guess," he told her. "Thanks. You know, for letting me crash here. Home isn't exactly welcoming lately."

She chewed as she nodded, then tilted her head as she swallowed. "You and Castle really got into it, tonight." She eyed him for a moment. "Something you want to tell me?"

He rolled his eyes and jabbed his chopsticks into the carton of chicken and broccoli. "He's an egomaniac on a power trip. Thinks just because he's all buddy-buddy with half the government and everyone who has ever published a book he owns the world. And let's not even mention that he's fucking his partner. Partner, my ass, he isn't even a cop and he's too close to this case."

"Breathe," she said abruptly, letting her hand drop to his shoulder. "I guess you don't like the guy, huh?" She laughed at the glare he'd given her. "You know, they're married, don't you? So that knocks off one of the things...wait, you don't have the hots for Beckett, do you?"

He nearly choked on his lo mein noodles. His eyes widened as he coughed and practically threw his food down on the table. "Are you out of your mind?" He saw the smirk on her face and couldn't help but crack a smile. "Oh. Oh, you little..." he cleared his throat and licked his teeth. He reached one arm across his body and grabbed her hand. "He just...he said some things, tonight, that were so..." he shook his head and let go of her hand, then slid away from her completely. "You done?"

She nodded, then watched as he grabbed the half-empty containers and padded into her kitchen. She sighed as she stared after him, and suddenly realized what a fool she'd been. "I'm...I'm gonna take a shower. The blankets are..."

"Right where I left them, last time, right?" he said, turning to look at her. He gave her a half-smile, but there was a somber sadness in his eyes. He had a new layer of stubble on his chin and he looked as though sleep had evaded for him for weeks. "I know."

"El," she almost whispered, standing. She walked toward him and said, "What's eating you?" She folded her arms when she got close enough to smell his after-shave, as if restraining herself from reaching for him. "Is it Kathy? Do you want me to call her and tell her..."

"No," he interrupted. "No, no, please. God, no." He was shaking his head rapidly, but keeping her gaze. "Liv, it's over. It is, and I'm not...I'm not upset. Part of me is relieved, and part of me is scared shitless, but I'm not upset." He looked at her and his eyes softened. "Castle...tonight he...he told me something, and at the time I thought he was just trying to get under my skin, or misreading the way...the way we are...with each other."

"What?" she asked, her heart thudding in her chest. Whenever Castle spoke, it usually had repercussions.

He took a deep breath, then took a step toward her. "He said..." and then he laughed. A nervous and somewhat self-effacing laugh. "He said...he thinks you're in love with me. Can you believe that? Guy's in the same room as you for a couple of hours and he thinks he can read you the way...the way I can." As he said those last words, his face fell. He saw by the look in her eyes that nothing about what Castle had perceived was funny, and that maybe he couldn't read her the way he always believed he could. "Liv?"

Stone faced, expressionless, she said, "Like I said, I'm gonna shower." She turned away from him and took a few steps toward her bedroom. "Night," she spat, without even looking over her shoulder at him. Her heart sped up with every step and her hands shook as she reached for her bedroom doorknob.

She practically leaped into the room once the door had opened and she grabbed the first pair of clean pajamas she could find, eager to get into the bathroom, into the shower, under the water, so the tears threatening to fall would be concealed and washed away.

How could he say that? How could he laugh as he did? And, above all, what gave him the right to be so flippant about something as serious as the L-word when just a few days ago Beckett had said she knew Elliot was the one in love, and her chance to be with him would come.

She took quick, ragged breaths as she made her way into the master bathroom. She turned the knobs and pulled the chain, setting the water to just below scalding. Her temper flared as thoughts raced and echoed in her mind. She tore off her clothes and hurled them into the hamper, as if the garments had somehow offended her. The steam rising from the shower could have just as easily been emanating from her ears. Castle had balls, and Beckett had nerve.

It was then, she stopped moving as the thought hit her, that she knew. She was jealous. Castle and Beckett worked together, for years, every moment falling for each other. First, it was a hidden relationship, kept to themselves, but now, they were married and the whole world knew. She closed her eyes and she wished like hell she could have an ounce of Beckett's nerve, to be able to go back into the living room and tell Elliot everything Castle had said was true.

She sighed and shook away the momentary lapse in sanity. She climbed over the side of her tub and pulled the curtain taut. When the hot water hit her back, she let go, and silent tears fell. Castle may have told Elliot the truth, but what if Beckett had lied?

She sniffled a bit and grabbed her shampoo, squeezing some into her open palm. After replacing the bottle, she rubbed her hands together and brought her fingers to her head, massaging and lathering over her scalp as she tried to stop crying.

The loud knock on the door startled her, she'd been so lost in calming herself down. "What, El?" she shouted, hoping her voice didn't break.

"Can I...can I come in?" he asked, and it was his voice that broke.

"What?" she yelled, stunned. "I'm kind of in the middle of..."

"Please?" he called out, pleading, and before she could answer he was opening the door. The steam whooshed at him, and he inhaled sharply. He closed the door behind him and swallowed the lump in his throat. "It smells...really good in here."

"Soap," she said, the nerves that had just gone away coming back with a vengeance. "What do you want that couldn't have waited?"

He licked his lips and gathered his nerve, and he began playing with his tie as he spoke. "I told you...the conversation wasn't over. I was trying to tell you...Liv, you left those other guys...poor bastards," he scoffed and chuckled. "Because you weren't in love with them."

"Well, yeah," she said, rinsing the shampoo out of her hair.

He took another breath and as he twiddled with the buttons on his shirt, he noticed his hands were shaking. "I guess...what I want to know is...were you in love with...someone else?" He heard a small thud and his eyes shot to her shadowed form behind the curtain. "Are you okay?"

"I dropped my conditioner," she told him, frozen in place. She knelt down slowly to pick it up and as she squeezed some into her hand, she said, "Why are you asking me, El?"

Elliot took yet another deep breath. "It is...it is fucking hot in here, Liv." He pulled off his shirt, damp from the steam, and he ran a hand down his face. "I'm asking because...if you weren't, the I may have possibly become the world's biggest idiot."

She was in the middle of wringing the conditioner out of her hair under the stream of water when he asked. "Stabler, if you have a point, get to it, because I'm almost done here, and no way in hell am I coming out with you sitting on my toilet!"

He laughed and stood up, wondering how she knew. "I left Kathy. I filed for divorce. Yeah, the marriage had dissolved and we fought like cats and dogs, but the reason...the reason I finally let it all go...was for you."

She heard the curtain rings slide and her eyes popped open. She blinked fast and back up under the shower hoping the water would make her less naked. "What are you...wow."

He smirked, knowingly, and he held out a hand. "Was he right? Liv, was Castle right?"

Her heart drummed against her ribs and it physically hurt with every quickened breath. She tried to stay focused on his eyes, difficult as she was tempted by every other inch of his body. She let her hand fall into his and did the only thing she could. She nodded.

He didn't speak, and he moved like lightning as he pulled her into his glistening body. He used his free hand to brush her wet hair back, then slid his palm down her neck, along her back, settling his fingers in the dip just above her ass. "I love you, too."

Before she had time to process his words, his lips had crashed into hers. The force of his kiss sent them both sliding under the shower's spray, and the world crashed around them, shattering and crumbling every wall they'd built around themselves over the years to prevent this from happening.

When his tongue slid against hers, her fingers dug into his back, and glimmering lights flashed behind her closed eyelids. She kissed him as eagerly as she could, but then pulled away slowly. Her lids fluttered opened and she looked at him, the smug, satisfied smile on his reddened lips contradicted the swirling emotion in his eyes.

"Did that really just happen?" she asked, her voice a raspy whisper.

He nodded and pulled her into him again, this time wrapping his body around her and finding the way they seemed to fit together. Her head in the bend of his neck and his in the crook of hers. He reached one hand out and turned off the water, and he stayed with her in the middle of the tub, holding her as the remains of the day and their denial dripped off their shoulders and down the drain.

It was few moments of rebirth, a few more sweet kisses, before a high-pitched ring hit their ears. A call, beckoning them back into the madness from which they'd finally found asylum.

"Do we have to?" he moaned, his lips against her neck.

She moaned, the vibrations from his voice sending shivers down her spine, tingling her nerves. "Unfortunately," she mumbled into his skin. She pushed him gently away from her and her eyes asked the question her lips were afraid to.

He answered her with a reassuring kiss, and then he pulled the curtain back and prepared himself for everything that was about to hit.

 _ **Reviews are always enjoyable**_

 _ **Peace and love**_

 _ **Jo**_


	6. Chapter 6

_**Deny.**_

 _ **Law and Order: SVU is the intellectual property of Dick Wolf. Castle is the intellectual property of Andrew W. Marlowe. The use of the characters, settings, and plotlines is not malicious. This is a work of fiction.**_

It was hard, almost impossible, but Olivia had managed to all but deny that anything had happened back at her apartment, in her shower. She behaved so professionally, not letting on to anyone that her entire world had shifted and was now spinning faster on a new axis. She looked at Elliot, who had a smug grin on his face despite the grim and morbid surroundings.

He, on the other hand, was content in the new dynamic between himself and his partner, and the eagerness of his body to be as close to hers was difficult to corral. He stopped himself, twice already, from reaching for her hand, and he almost wrapped an arm around her shoulder as they huddled around their latest victim.

"Michelle Crichton," Beckett said with a sigh, holding the victim's wallet in her hand. "Twenty-three." She handed the wallet to Olivia, then looked at Castle. "Any literary references here?"

Castle bit his lip and nodded. "Michael Crichton," he said, his eyes staring at the cold body at his feet. "He wrote Jurassic Park, among other things. One of the nicest guys I've ever met. The world suffered a tragic loss when we lost him."

Elliot rolled his eyes. "Who talks like that?"

Olivia elbowed him in the ribs and flicked the hair out of her eyes. Having no time to blow dry it, it had become a soft, wavy mess, and the windy night didn't help matters much. "Melinda, you got any surprises for us?"

Melinda Warner looked up at them, shifting her weight onto her knees. "I'm still working on a preliminary exam..."

Lanie Parish chirped, then, and shot a hand out. "This might be something to ya," she said with a raised eyebrow. "This was in her pants pocket."

Castle reached out and took the small, white card Lanie had been holding. He looked down at it, grimly. "It's your card," he said, reaching over and offering the business card to Elliot. "There's a phone number on the back."

Elliot squinted as he studied the unfamiliar number, pulling his cell phone out of his back pocket. He dialed the digits and looked at Olivia as the ring blared in his ear, waiting for a connection. He shrugged, noting that no one was picking up, and when he heard the voicemail's outgoing message, he stiffened. He pushed the button t end the call and stared at his phone in disbelief for a full minute.

"What?" Olivia prodded softly, not liking the look on his face.

Beckett folded her arms. "Who is it?"

"I..I don't..." Elliot shook his head, then pushed a button on his phone, re-dialing the number. He held the phone out to Olivia, who raised an eyebrow as she took it. He waited, holding his breath, and when he saw her face contort in confusion and fear, he finally allowed himself to breathe.

"Someone tell me who that number leads to," Beckett prompted, annoyed now.

Olivia blinked once, then looked at Beckett. "Simone Bryce." She said the name fast, on a hard breath, almost as if it burned her tongue to form the words. "She's a...well, she's a child advocacy attorney."

"Really?" Castle questioned, leaning forward. "She's gotta be more than that if you both look like you've seen a ghost."

Elliot turned to him. "A ghost...from the past, maybe. She..." he said as he glanced at Olivia, waiting for her permission to tell them. When she bit her lip and nodded at him, he continued. "She helped Liv, a long time ago..."

"I was facing criminal charges," Olivia cut in, "For assaulting my mother. It was...it was self-defense...my mom, she was..." she paused, shaking her head and closing her eyes. . Bryce...she helped me avoid a conviction, and I...it's because of her that I'm...here. Now."

"That sounds...vague..." Beckett said with narrow eyes. "But...what would she have to with..."

"It went to voicemail, twice," Elliot said. "Something's wrong."

Castle held up a finger and readied himself to spout one of his far-fetched theories, but Elliot's phone rang. As he looked down at the glowing screen and flashing number, he allowed himself to feel a bit of hope. He would lose faith in humanity if his partner's savior turned out to be in trouble. Or worse. "Stabler," he said, finally answering the call.

Olivia gave him a concerned and pained look. "What?" she mouthed.

He held up a hand and said, "Yes. That's right," he nodded and sent a sideways glance toward Beckett. "Right. I...I...hold on." He handed the phone to Castle.

With question marks etched into his features, Castle took the phone. "This is Richard Cas..." he paused. "Who is this? What have you done with..." and he stopped again, his eyes widening. "A message? For me? Go on." He tilted his head and made a scrawling motion with his free hand, asking for a pen and paper.

Beckett was the first responder, handing him a red click-pen and her notepad. She watched, curious, as he wrote down whatever the voice on the other end was saying.

"Who the hell was it, El?" Olivia asked in a harsh whisper. "Is she..."

"It wasn't her," Elliot said, his eyes closing. He blinked a few times before meeting her worried stare. "The guy works in her office, she's in a meeting with a client. He just...he was asked to deliver a message to...him." He jutted a thumb in Castle's direction. "None of this makes any sense."

Castle, sighing, said, "Yeah, actually, it does." He looked at Beckett, then at Elliot, then landed on Olivia's pallid face. "This isn't entirely about you, though, since you're the best team in the city, besides, of course, Kate and myself..."

"Get to the point," Elliot barked, rolling his eyes.

Castle furrowed his brow and flattened his lips, hoping like hell they could put the case to bed soon before he told Elliot off in no uncertain terms. "My point...is that the message was for me...and this entire...situation...is about my father." He looked at Olivia. "And seeing as how you two merit the front page every time you solve a case, he took advantage of the fact that your daughter and mine had become roommates."

"So that part was sheer coincidence," Beckett surmised, and Castle nodded. "What...what about your father?"

Castle shook his head and looked at Beckett, at the same time handing Elliot his phone. "That part was conveniently left out."

"What exactly was the message, Castle?" Elliot asked, shoving his hands into his pockets.

Taking a deep breath and looking over his shoulder at the lifeless woman on the pavement, he handed Beckett the notepad. She read it as he said, "This is the eye of the bloody storm. I'm picking off your friends one by one as the heat rises. Solve the puzzle before I strike again, before you're kissed and killed. You have your father to thank for this."

Beckett flapped the small pad against her hand as she twisted her lips and bit the inside of her cheek. "That sounds too poetic to be just a threat."

Castle took her hand. "Heat Rises...Bloody Storm...Kissed and Killed..." he rattled off, pausing in between each phrase, hoping she would have an 'ah-ha' moment. "They're the names of three of my novels, Kate!"

Beckett raised both eyebrows and nodded with an over-enthused vigor. "Yeah, oh, yeah...I know that." She looked at Elliot. "So we have your business card with this Simone Bryce's phone number on the back. Is that your handwriting?"

Elliot shook his head. "But we did use to give out her number to younger victims. Abuse, neglect, even parental mol..."

"Yeah," Beckett stopped him before he finished speaking the worst of it. "Whoever is at the root of all this had to know that. He used her legal secretary to relay a message, meaning he knew we would call that number. He's a step ahead of us at every turn."

Castle stood up a little straighter, just then, and he smirked a bit as he said, "No. Not...not every turn."

Olivia gave him a cockeyed look. "Huh?"

Castle grabbed Beckett's hand and said, "Come on. We have to find a bookstore. Fast."

As she watched them run off, she said, "There's something about him..."

"...that's so fucking weird," Elliot finished for her, though he was pretty sure that is not how she would have finished it for herself. "Hey, Doc, do we have a COD yet?"

Warner looked over at him just as she finished scribbling something on her clipboard. "Yeah," she sighed. "She died from exsanguination caused by puncture wounds to three major arteries. The carotid, aortic, and femoral."

"So she was stabbed," Olivia said with a single nod.

Warner smiled and held her clipboard to her chest. "But not with a knife. Wounds are round, they range from about five to seven millimeters in diameter, and...there is a blue, slick substance staining the skin around the wounds."

Elliot knitted his brows. "What the fuck?"

Olivia chuckled at him before looking back at Doctor Warner. "Blue...like ink? A pen, maybe?"

Lanie stepped up beside Melinda and gave Olivia a sassy smile. "You hit the nail on the head, Detective," she said. "From my cursory examination it looks like a standard fountain pen. Sharp, metal, hollow tip with a broad barrel. The difference in puncture size could indicate you're looking for a tapered pen."

"A fountain pen?" Elliot questioned. "Now, I've heard tweezers, manicure scissors, even had a perp stab me in the chest with pen, but I survived. We saying this guy knew exactly where to aim?"

Warner gave a slight shrug. "The only wounds are directly to the major arteries, and the pen was sharp and wide enough to sever them all. I'd say your guy has a background in anatomy, or at least studied like hell to gear up for this."

But...come on...a pen?" Elliot retorted again. "Is this another jab at Castle?"

Olivia exhaled as she tugged on Elliot's jacket sleeve, trying to get him to lead her back to their car. "You know what they say," she said as they walked. "The pen is mightier than the sword. This guy...well, I guess he just proved it."

 _ **Reviews are always enjoyable**_

 _ **Peace and love**_

 _ **Jo**_


	7. Chapter 7

_**Pieces.**_

 _ **Law and Order: SVU is the intellectual property of Dick Wolf. Castle is the intellectual property of Andrew W. Marlowe. The use of the characters, settings, and plotlines is not malicious. This is a work of fiction.**_

"We pulled the records," Detective Ryan said, brandishing the manila folders in the air as he walked into the squad room. "Four cold cases, same M.O...only, uh, different weapons. One used a scalpel, three were ice picks." He flopped the folders down on the desk in front of Beckett.

"What...how is that the same M.O.?" Beckett reached up to take the cup of espresso Castle had held out to her.

Detective Esposito crossed his arms and said, "Because all the victims were stabbed in the same three spots, COD is exsanguination, and check this out, all of them had a history with that Bryce woman."

Olivia's ears perked up and her eyes shot to Esposito. "What?"

Ryan nodded, poking the inside of his cheek with his tongue. "We took the liberty of checking the three latest victims, and Bob's-your-uncle, they have ties to her, too."

"No, that...that...no," Olivia sputtered, pulling a file out of Beckett's hand. She didn't notice Elliot sit beside her or drop a hot cup of coffee in front of her, she simply stared at the records indicating that the victims were former clients of the woman who saved her life. "She can't be involved in this, there's no way she..."

Castle interrupted her and said, "In a few hours, we'll know. Trust me." He sipped his espresso and looked at Beckett.

"A few hours?" Elliot asked, almost pissed off. "We don't have that kind of time!" He squinted, and then sat back and eyed Castle narrowly. "You had to go a bookstore in the middle of this, what was that? Huh?"

Castle stiffened. "Do you have a problem with me, Detective Stabler?" he asked, his face severe.

Elliot waved a hand at him and looked away, slumping. "I have a problem with people raping and killing, and I have a problem when the investigating detectives would rather go play story time than solve the case."

"I was sending..." he stopped. "I had to contact a...contact."

"Oh, that explains it, thanks," Elliot retorted, rolling his eyes. "Look, Liv," he said standing and looking down at her. "While Stephen King here plays shadow puppets with the One-Two here, why don't we do some actual detective work and go talk to Bryce?"

Olivia stood fast, almost as soon as the words left his mouth. She chugged her coffee and tossed the paper cup into the trash can near Beckett's desk and started walking out, with Elliot right behind her.

Ryan and Esposito stared after them for a moment before turning toward Castle. "See?" Esposito said.

"What?" Castle shrugged.

"No one can stand you for the first year after they meet you," Ryan said, chuckling. "It takes a while for people to see the real you underneath the idiot exterior."

Castle made an immature face at them and just as he opened his mouth to speak, his phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket and his heart leaped. He answered it with an excited, "Hi!" He walked away from the others as he spoke, hoping to finally have the link that would complete the chain.

Across town, Olivia and Elliot were bursting through the doors of Simone Bryce's office, starting the desk clerk and making a few clients yelp in surprise. Olivia held up her badge and kept moving, heading straight for the back office door, where she hoped to find Bryce.

Simone jumped when the door opened, shooting to her feet. She fumed as she shouted, "Excuse me, you can't just...Olivia?" She stared for a moment, and then moved closer to the pair. "What are you doing here? Do you need me on a case?"

Olivia resisted the urge to hug the redheaded attorney, instead, she shook her head. "No, no, I...I need to know where you've been the last few days, and who..."

"Olivia, be straight with me," Simone pleaded as she sat back down. "What is this about?"

Elliot's phone rang and he stepped to the back of the room as Olivia talked to Simone. "Someone...has been attacking women...who used to be clients of yours. I mean, this goes back...years...and I...I don't want to believe that you would possibly have a connection to something this heinous, but..."

"Which girls?" Simone interrupted. "Do you have names?"

Olivia nodded and pulled out a small flip-top notebook. She turned a few pages and handed it to Simone, who studied the names. "The son of a bitch left your number, on the back of one of Elliot's cards, with the last victim. He left message with your secretary. It...this doesn't look good for you."

Simone closed her eyes and sighed. "I didn't know any of them were...and you said years?"

Olivia nodded. "Three," she said, taking her notepad back. "What happened three years ago? Who would be trying to..."

"Do you know anyone named Jackson Hunt?" Elliot said, stepping into the conversation with his phone still in his hand.

Simone went white and her jaw dropped. "I haven't heard that name in..." she paused and looked at Olivia. "Three years, actually."

"Fill in the blanks for us, here," Elliot said with outstretched hands, indicating he wanted her to explain.

Simone looked at him, then at Olivia, and then down at her lap. "He was very charming, very handsome...I met him a jazz club and, and I know this was stupid, but I took him home. The next day, he was gone, so was my Blackberry. He didn't even leave a note." She looked back up at Olivia sheepishly. "A few days later, I got an encrypted e-mail from him, apologizing and thanking me."

"He took your Blackberry," Elliot noted, watching Olivia write the information down in the notepad. "What information was..."

"Everything," Simone said, exasperated. "Names of clients, phone numbers and addresses, four e-mail accounts, compressed files, and...updates. Where they are now, what they're doing. I like to keep tabs on the children who come in and out of my office, in case they ever..." she turned her head toward Olivia again. "Need me again," she shrugged.

Elliot met Olivia's eyes. "That's a start," he said. "One last thing," he said, swiping through some pictures on his cell phone. "Does this mean anything to you?" He held out the phone so Simone could see the photo.

She narrowed her eyes, examining the picture of a blank ink tattoo. Her eyes widened in realization and she whipped her head up to look at Elliot. "That's the logo," she said. "The jazz club where I met Jackson, it's called Iridium, and...that...swirly music note...it's part of the logo."

Olivia looked up at Elliot. "We got a lead," she said biting her lip. She looked at Simone again. "I don't want to sound like I'm accusing you of anything, here, but...don't leave town, and keep your cell phone on."

Simone nodded as she watched Olivia stand and move with Elliot toward the doors.

"Who the hell is Jackson Hunt?" Olivia asked in a harsh whisper, leaving into Elliot.

Elliot pushed the door open and led Olivia out of the office as he told her, "Castle didn't tell me that much, only that he is a large part of why our perp is going after these girls." He took her by the hand and walked with her out of the building and back into the bustling city streets. "He gave up a name, though. Someone he thinks could be our guy."

"Who?" Olivia asked, unknowingly gripping his hand tighter.

Elliot leaned in and kissed her cheek, unable to resist the fleeting chance to do so. "He didn't say, wants to talk to us back at the station." He jutted his head and tugged on her hand before letting it go. He stayed right by her side, and his eyes narrowed. He would do whatever it took to protect her, if she needed protecting, and as far as he was concerned, she did. After all, she too, was a former client of Simone Bryce, and that seemed to be the one absolute requirement to become the next victim.

 _ **Reviews are always encouraging and enjoyable.**_

 _ **Peace and love**_

 _ **Jo**_


	8. Chapter 8

_**Instinct.**_

 _ **Law and Order: SVU is the intellectual property of Dick Wolf. Castle is the intellectual property of Andrew W. Marlowe. The use of the characters, settings, and plotlines is not malicious. This is a work of fiction.**_

"Wow," Olivia said, slumping in her chair with a wide-eyed, exasperated expression on her face. "You..does Beckett know about..."

"She knows," Castle said, nodding. His eyed fell slightly. "My mother...Alexis...they don't know. Alexis, uh, she does know some of it. She was involved with...a while back she was..." he squeezed the bridge of his nose and shook his head. "She doesn't know everything. And neither do the two of you. You only know what you need to know to solve this case."

Elliot cleared his throat. "Looks like we all have daddy-issues," he said, an attempt to lighten the mood. He saw the stern look Castle was giving him and the hurt in Olivia's eyes. "I was...um...sorry." He cleared his throat a second time and flipped the page of names Castle had given him. "You really think it's a surgeon?"

Castle nodded. "I think my father had his face completely rearranged a few hundred times, so..." he shrugged. "One of those surgeons could have gone rogue. Double agent. Insane." His head tilted as his eyes widened a bit. "This is a great idea for a book. Nikki Heat chases after a brutal killer but he gets away each time because he alters his face through..."

"Nikki Heat?" Elliot questioned, an unamused and somewhat annoyed look on his face.

Olivia leaned over to him. "The character he based on Beckett," she whispered. "You really should read his books, El, the man is talented and his love scenes are...hot."

"Oh," he whispered back, his eyes narrowing. "You want hot? I'd show you hot if I could get a couple hours alone with you, and I..."

"Hi," Castle interjected, grinning. "Hi, hello, in the room." He grinned broadly at Olivia. "You think my love scenes are hot?"

"Are you kidding?" Olivia chuckled. "Heat Wave, chapter ten, I needed a cold shower and an even colder beer after that one." She shook her head and exhaled. "The way you described Rook's body moving under..."

"Okay!" Elliot said, annoyance engraved on his face. "He looked at Castle. "Wait. You...you've got to be kidding me. Rook...Castle..." he scoffed. "A rook in chess...the piece is a castle...you wrote yourself into a novel, and your wife is..." he laughed, leaning back in his chair. "Has she read any of your..."

"She is my muse, my inspiration," Castle told him, smiling with a cocky glare in his eyes. "My biggest fan." He turned to Olivia. "All of the love scenes in Raging Heat and Driving Heat are accurate portrayals of actual events."

Olivia gasped, then cleared her throat, pressing her lips together. "How...good for...you. Good for...shit, good for her," she said with a sideways smirk and an angled glance.

Elliot rolled his eyes and spoke harshly. "We gotta get a move on this," he said, waving the notebook in the air. He angled his head toward Olivia, giving her a slanted smile. "You coming, or do you wanna stay here and help Shakespeare, over here, edit his next smutty book?"

"Hey!" Castle snapped, offended. "It is not...smutty. It's...romance with an emphasis on intense physical pleasure."

Elliot groaned, his eyes once again turning upward, as he stood up. He didn't even wait for Olivia, he just expected her to follow him.

Olivia looked at Castle apologetically. "It's not that he doesn't like you, really, he's..."

"Jealous," Castle nodded. "I know."

"Not of you, though," Olivia protested, shaking her head.

"I know that, too," Castle told her. "I know he wants with his partner...what I have with mine, and he hasn't quite been able to get it," he gave her a small nod and the barest of smiles. "You know which half of that list is yours?"

"Yeah," Olivia said, licking her lips and dragging her fingers through her hair. She nodded once at Castle before finally following Elliot's path out the door and into trouble.

She ran as fast as she could in the black leather heeled boots she wore that morning, not expecting to have to walk all around Manhattan. "Slow down," she yelled, still trying to catch up to him. "Elliot, wait!"

He stopped, then and turned to her, a fire in his eyes. "What the hell was that back there?" he shouted. "Were you trying to make me even more frustrated than I already am?" He let his head fall back as he squeezed his eyes shut and frowned. "I mean, fuck, Liv, it doesn't take a genius to know what..."

"Calm down," she exhaled, the chill in the air enough to make her hot breath a visible fog as she spoke. "I know." She looked around, absently taking in small details of her surroundings, a bad habit only a detective could pick up. "It's the job. We both knew this job would..." she exhaled harshly again, kicking a pile of fallen leaves with her pointed boot. "It's why...it's why none of my relationships ever lasted. It's why Kathy left."

Elliot laughed, but it didn't sound joyous at all. His eyes were still gleaming with something that looked to be a mix of severe pain and lustful need. "That's a load of bullshit, and you know it, Benson." He pointed a gloved finger at her. He inhaled and laughed again, this time in bitter revelation of the true direness of their situation. "It was one thing...working with you on cases like this...knowing it didn't matter...you were just a fantasy."

She looked at him then, his confused emotions now mirrored in her eyes, along with something she tried so hard to extinguish. Fear. "And now, I'm not, so you...what, you don't want...?"

"I don't want...are you out of your fucking mind, Olivia?" he spouted, reaching out and grabbing her arms, just below her shoulders, and pulling her closer to him. "You are all I want. And since the other night...in the shower..." he shook his head and looked deeper into her eyes. "We will talk about this later, but I need you to listen to me, closely. I want to nail this sick son of a bitch, and go home...with you." He grinned at her. "I promise it'll be so much better than anything you've ever read."

She felt every muscle in her body shiver, but it wasn't from the dropping New York City temperature. She closed her eyes and took a slow, deep, breath, and when she opened them, he was still staring at her, just as hungrily as he had been for the last few minutes. "El, I...we have to...get back to work."

"Yeah," he scoffed. "I fucking know that." He darted his eyes, from left to right and back again, then squinted to peer at the precinct across the street. When he was sure no one who knew them was around, he pulled her just a bit closer and gave her a soft, chaste kiss on the lips. He bent his head and whispered something to her.

Her eyes fluttered shut, his hot breath sending even more icy electricity coursing through her body. She gulped and opened her eyes, seeing the tumultuous emotions that had been swirling in his blue eyes had calmed, replaced by only one: certain love. She smiled against her will, a reflexive response to the jolt of happiness that had somehow washed over her. She nodded and stood on her toes to whisper the sentiment right back to him, unsure of how steady her voice would be if she tried to say it any louder.

He smoothed his hands down her arms and winked at her before he turned away from her, leading her straight for the first address on their list. He hoped like hell someone would match the description Castle's father had given them, because he wasn't sure how much longer he could wait. He felt drawn to Olivia since the moment he'd met her, and as time passed, that pull only grew more powerful and now the bond between them was unbreakable. He needed to solidify that, prove his theory, before anyone or anything could try to unravel everything he had worked so incredibly hard to build with her.

She got to the front desk of the spacious office first, held up her badge, and offered a smile to the young receptionist. "Detective Benson, Special Victims, this is my partner, Detective Stabler. We have a few questions for..."

"You got here fast," the woman said, relieved but visibly unnerved. "Right this way, and please, we have patients on every floor of this building, this needs to be dealt with as fast as possible, before any of them find out." She walked fast, her heels clicking on the white tiles, echoed by the footfalls of Olivia and Elliot.

Olivia shot an inquisitive look over to Elliot, who simply shrugged at her. "What are you..." she shut up as soon as the door before them slid open. "El, call..."

"On it," he replied, already dialing.

Olivia took a few steps toward the operating table, a severe look of shocked interest on her face. "Who is she?" she asked, but she didn't move to turn toward the receptionist.

"Her name is Holly Purcell," the woman said, wringing her hands together. "Her...her penname is..."

"Penname?" Olivia interrupted. "She was a writer?"

The receptionist nodded. "She was here, getting a few simple botox injections for her book signing this evening."

Olivia tilted her head, gears turning in her mind. She knew the name. She knew the face. She gasped and turned toward Elliot, her eyes panic-stricken as she watched him put his phone back in his pocket. "El," she breathed. "He isn't after Simone's clients anymore."

Elliot's face screwed up in confusion and concern as he walked toward her. He looked down at the body and he inhaled sharply. "I remember her," he said, one hand dragging down his face as the other landed on his hip. "So, what, now he's after..."

"Our victims," Olivia said, finishing his morbid thought. "She wrote a book, El, so maybe this is..."

"This is too fucking insane to be a coincidence, Liv," he told her. He rested a hand on her shoulder, squeezing it, as he pulled his phone out of his pocket again, this time calling Detective Beckett.

Olivia took a deep breath and turned to finally face the frightened receptionist. "Can you tell me the name of her doctor? And where I could find him now?"

"That's...that's why we called you," the young woman said. "He ran out of here, covered in blood, and we couldn't..."

"Who?" Olivia asked again, more impatient.

The receptionist took a breath and said, "Dr. Jergens."

Elliot's eyes shot to Olivia's at the mention of his name. "But I thought..."

"Oh, fuck," Olivia expelled. "I'll call the district attorney's office, find out how that bastard got out." She pulled her phone out of her pocket and as she dialed she said, "Call Cragen, tell him to put out an APB on this asshole. And ask Beckett if Jergens is on her half of the list because he's sure as hell not on ours."

Elliot nodded, scraping his teeth along his bottom lip as he relayed Olivia's question to Beckett. His eyes followed Olivia as she moved around the room, shouting into the phone, and his instincts told him, now, that none of this had too much to do with Castle or his father. The real target here, who Jergens was really after, was Olivia.

 _ **Reviews are always encouraging and enjoyable.**_

 _ **Peace and love**_

 _ **Jo**_


	9. Chapter 9

_**Bound.**_

 _ **Law and Order: SVU is the intellectual property of Dick Wolf. Castle is the intellectual property of Andrew W. Marlowe. The use of the characters, settings, and plotlines is not malicious. This is a work of fiction.**_

"There's something eerily familiar about this," Olivia griped, sipping her coffee. She made a sour face and stared at the green and white cup as though it had seriously offended her. It had gone cold without her permission.

Elliot sighed as he walked over to her. "It's not..." he stopped, knowing anything he said would be dismissed by his partner. "It's different this time." He kissed the back of her head and she turned to look at him. He saw her eyes, the way they narrowed slightly as if she were terribly confused. "What?" he chuckled.

"I'm..." she took a breath and gulped down the rest of her coffee. "I'm not used to that, yet," she shrugged.

He raised an eyebrow and gave a cocky grin, and then pulled her toward him, kissing her full on the lips. He held her body still, tight against his, and a soft moan that sounded like her name filtered through the small gap between them. "Get used to it," he commanded with a wink. He ran a hand up and down her arms and said, "And hey, they left us here alone. They're smart enough to know we wouldn't like having babysitters."

"Technically," she said, rolling her eyes, "I'm the one in protective custody. You're my babysitter."

He laughed, sounding offended. "Oh, thanks," he spat, kissing her cheek and then her lips.

"You really think he's after me?" she asked after he pulled away from her. Her head dropped into his chest and she felt his hands smoothing down the back of her head, playing with her hair.

"I do," he said firmly. "Not a doubt in my mind. I think he was fucking with Castle, but I think...his ultimate goal...is you. The one that got away, the one he couldn't take down. You're the one that nailed his ass, so he's..."

"We both did," she interrupted. She turned her eyes up to his and said, "For some reason, he seems less hung up on you, though." She winked.

He kissed her again and cleared his throat, taking the empty cup out of her hands and tossing into the trash can like a basketball. He nodded at himself, a quiet victory, and said, "Ryan and Esposito are tailing him. Beckett's gonna bring him back to the box, where he belongs, and we..." he wagged his brows at her, "...finally get some much needed time to ourselves."

"Oh, is that how you're looking at this?" she laughed, following as he led her toward the pull-out bed in the middle of the room.

He nodded, biting his lip. "Yeah, I think...come here." He sat on the lumpy, foldaway mattress, and pulled her down into his lap. He looked at her with an unreadable expression on his face, and though he tried like hell to come off as arrogant as usual, he had to admit to himself that he was nervous. "Liv, I..."

She shook her head. "I know," she breathed. She kissed him while her fingers slipped under the collar of his shirt. She toyed with the buttons, and with each soft pop, she felt her heart thud against her rib-cage. Her nails raked down his chest as they eased the rest of his shirt buttons apart.

He shivered at the feel of her touch, a few light moans flew from his mouth into hers, and his own hands, shaking, moved toward the hem of her tee-shirt. He rolled the cotton up in his hands and began to push and pull, grunting a bit when they separated. He watched with wide, intent eyes, as she raised her arms for him to pull it fully off of her.

She saw his face freeze, his mouth frozen in what looked like shock, but his eyes were filled with great desperation. She bit her lip and dropped her arms to his chest, and she felt herself blushing.

"You are...so fucking gorgeous," he mumbled. He thought maybe he should tell her how amazed he was by her, by her body, her soul, but he knew it would scare her more than she'd ever let on, and the last thing he wanted was to lose this chance again. He shirked away his shirt and returned his hands to her hips. His eyes moved with his hands, following the curved roads of her body, until they curled around her back and headed for the clasp of her bra. He looked into her eyes, then, asking permission.

She smiled and nodded. "El, you should know, I..." the longer she looked at him, the harder it became to speak. She felt the tight pull of her bra straps give, and she knew he'd unhooked it. She felt his hands slipping and guiding the silky garment away from her skin. "You need to know, I...I've wanted this...you...for..."

"Shh," he quieted with a soft smile. "As long as I have?" he whispered. "Trust me, it's been a lot longer for me than you think. I've always..." he smiled, and he thought if that one, single, word could hold so much weight for Castle and Beckett, maybe she would understand if he simply said it to her now. He shrugged again and said, "Always."

She gave a small laugh, having heard Castle say it to Beckett a lot over the past week. She nodded and cupped his face as she kissed him, rocking her hips over him once.

He cried into her kiss, his hands trailed down her back and hooked on the belt loops of her jeans. He skimmed along her waist and unzipped them, yanking hard as she rose up on her knees. They kissed as he shoved them down and he laughed when she kicked them off. He heard them land on the floor and slid his hands back up her legs to cup her ass. He moaned and his pulse quickened when he felt nothing but bare skin under his palms.

She yelped and laughed heartily when he flipped her over onto her back, tossing her playfully onto the mattress. She gazed hungrily at him, watching as he made quick work of getting his own pants off, pulling his boxers along with them.

He waited, naked, for a moment. He was giving phones the chance to ring, pausing for any possible interruption. When he was satisfied that no one was breaking them up this time, he allowed himself to breathe and he crawled over her, looking down with nothing but love and hazy lust in his eyes. "This is happening," he told her.

"Yeah, it is," she laughed. Her hands drove up and down his back, finally settling at the back of his head. Something that had once seemed so impossible, that was at one time only a fantasy, was now very real, and very imminent. She looked into his eyes as he peered down at her, and they both seemed to understand that this was a profound moment, and deserved absolute silence and undivided attention.

They kissed slowly, silently, once, and then with locked eyes, they began to move. He inched slowly into her, watching her eyes for signs of discomfort, regret, or pain. Seeing only deep love and melting anticipation, he pushed further, burying himself in her depths. His head dropped to her neck and he places three soft kisses to the thin skin over her collar bone.

She moaned softly as her head fell back, her eyes sliding closed, and she relished in the moment, taking time to feel him fill her. "In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti," she whispered, and it flew out of her mouth so rapidly she was barely conscious of what she had said.

His head popped up, hearing her mumbled prayer, and he smiled at her. He stared into her eyes, holding her gaze, almost daring her to blink as he thrust his body with more power and speed. He mouthed something to her that made her eyes roll and earned another laugh from him.

Her nails pierced his skin as she curled her fingers around his arms, and soft utterances of unholy words left on heated breaths. A sharp contrast to the righteous prayer she sputtered before, but that's who she was, after all. A complex conundrum. A paradox. Hard and soft, shelled and delicate, independent yet so consumed and lost to one other person. Him. She blinked rapidly, trying like hell not to cry, not to think. She sniffled only once when she opened her eyes again, and she found him, where he had been all the while, gazing at her with pure desire and need in his eyes.

He sped up, then, and hooked his right hand behind her left knee. He pulled her leg upward, opening her wider, raising her hips, and giving himself leverage as he wrapped her leg around his back. "Fuck," he seethed, dragging through her slowly once before picking up steam and driving into her with everything he had, determined.

Her mouth fell open then, her eyes rolling backward, and her voice sounded dry and dark as she groaned, "Oh, my God, Elliot." Her nails carved intricate canals in his skin as she clutched and clawed at him, begging for more and trying to force him impossibly deeper into her. "El," she whispered, lifting her head to kiss him. She ravaged his mouth with hers, gnawing at his lips and violently tangling with his tongue. In the back of her mind, she knew this was almost over, and she was clinging to it for as long as she possibly could. She snaked her right arm down, around his back, and gripped his ass hard.

He laughed as they kissed, and returned her playful grab with one of his own, smoothing his left hand up to wedge between them and give her breast a hard squeeze. He tweaked at her nipple, rolling and twisting it in between his fingers, and then grazing his open palm over the hardened bead. He growled when he felt her buck her hips up as her right leg met her left at the small of his back.

She linked her ankles and pulled him into her, and she smirked against his lips. "You're not gonna hurt me," she whispered to him.

He pulled his head back slightly, seeing the burning in her eyes. He grinned back at her and gave her what she wanted. Each thrust caused a loud smack as their skin met, stuck together, and peeled apart. He moved in waves, making sure his body dragged over her clit every time. He briefly wondered what the next time would be like, and the time after that, as they discovered secret spots and turn ons, as they explored each other and searched for hidden fantasies.

Her mind had drifted down the same winding road, but she was a girl who lived in the moment, and time for discovery was always now. She moved one of her hands off of his has and trailed around the curve of his working body. She splayed her hand over his hard abs, angling them, so that whenever he thrust in or out, her fingertips would graze his shaft.

"Holy shit," he gasped, before reclaiming her lips. He tugged once again on her nipple before his hand raced to meet hers, his wrist twisting and rolling between their hot, slick bodies. He mimicked her touch, spreading his palm over the lowest part of her pelvis, and he moved only his thumb, vigorously, against her clit.

She inhaled sharply and let out a shuddering, "Oh, my God, Elliot." Their eyes met again and she felt her entire body strain against tension. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to slow the building burn, begging herself to wait for him. "Elliot," she breathed over and over, her head rolling. "God, please..."

He felt her clenching and he grunted with every single thrust. "Liv," he huffed. "Liv, we...fuck, God, we..." and then words were nothing but a memory. He lost all ability to speak, his vision blurred, and the only sound he could hear was the thunder-drum of his own heartbeat. She clamped around him so intensely he could no longer pull out. Her body throbbed and pulsed around his cock, milking him, evoking a loud and hard cry of her name.

She clasped around him, as if her life depended on it, every inch of her body pressed somehow to his. "Elliot," she moaned with gritted teeth as she trembled, "Oh, God." She felt tremors roll through her, every muscle twitched as she came for him, because of him.

He stilled against her, drained and spent within her, and he used the remnants of his energy to roll over with her. He flopped exhaustedly onto his back and gave one scoffing laugh when her body sprawled limply over his. He moaned, though, as he felt her, still vibrating. He wrapped his arms around her and pecked at every part of her that his lips could reach. "I love you," he whispered. "I love you, I love you, I love you."

She shuddered again as she attempted to move, succeeding in only lifting and turning her head. Her lips found his and this kiss was so much more than any other had been. Slow, languid. but all-consuming. She whimpered into his mouth when she felt him throb and twitch inside of her, and the overturning of their universe was acknowledged.

He brushed her back as he tried to catch his breath and the longer he looked into her eyes the more in love with her he fell. He felt the ties tighten around them, he felt part of his soul sear itself to hers, and he knew no matter what was thrown at him in life, he was forever bound to her. "That was..." he tried to speak, shaking his head. "That wasn't sex, that's for damn sure."

She laughed and nodded, agreeing. It was so much more than that, she thought. She dropped her head and kissed him softly, a soft, "I love you," passing between them. "What were you trying to say?" she asked, her index finger drawing swirly shapes on his twitching chest.

He shook his head, taking a deliberately slow breath. "Don't worry about it," he said flatly. "It doesn't even matter, baby." He kissed her again. He felt the blood begin to flow through his body again, and the longer he kissed her, the more he felt the need to pump her again. He gave a slow rock of his hips and upon hearing a low moan from her, he started an easy, rhythmic thrust. Taking time to savor every slide home, he deepened the kiss and held her close.

"El," she whispered, "God, Elliot." She nuzzled into him as they brought each other to a gentle second climax, and just as she heard him curse and felt him jerk beneath her, his phone rang. "Damn it," she spat, dropping her head to his chest. She went for a short ride as he pulled himself up further on the mattress.

He reached for the phone on the side table as he watched her place sweet kisses on his chest. He toyed with a few curly locks of her hair as he answered the call with a short, "Stabler." He froze, and then he sat up, taking her with him. He groaned a bit too loudly when she shifted her weight to sit comfortably in his lap, but he kept playing with her hair as he listened to the person speak. "Okay, uh...yeah. Yeah. Thanks. Ten minutes. Bye." He let the phone fall out of his hand and he kissed Olivia hard, pulling away with a declarative grunt.

"What?" she asked, tilting her head.

He took a deep breath, kissed her once more, and said, "They got him."

 _ **Reviews are always encouraging and enjoyable.**_

 _ **Peace and love**_

 _ **Jo**_


	10. Chapter 10

_**Linked.**_

 _ **Law and Order: SVU is the intellectual property of Dick Wolf. Castle is the intellectual property of Andrew W. Marlowe. The use of the characters, settings, and plotlines is not malicious. This is a work of fiction.**_

Her thoughts had drifted, sometime between Cragen calling and yelling about case closure rates dropping since they'd loaned themselves out to the 12th and Espositio trying to explain what Jergens had said while he was being processed. Some part of her mind hoped Elliot had been paying pull attention, but the rest of her just didn't give a fuck. She was replaying the previous night's events in her mind and wondering how it happened. Why?

She was taken on a journey up the stream of consciousness, as one lewd memory led to an impure thought of things to come. She bit the end of her pen, pondering things like 'does he like biting and scratching?' 'What would he do if I tugged on his balls when he came?' and 'Is this going to happen again, or was this just us finding closure?' She squeezed her eyes shut as that last thought finished processing, and she fought back the bile rising in her throat. It had to happen again. And again. Or she'd lose the parts of herself she'd only just been given back.

"Benson?" Esposito called, a bit louder than he hand the three times prior. He offered a smile when she made eye contact. "You okay?"

"Yeah," she said, paling. "Fine." She took a sip of the espresso Castle had left for her, making a mental note to fill out a requisition form for one in her own unit.

"How long are they gonna be?" Elliot asked, cracking his knuckles and rolling his neck. "We...I mean, not to be rude or a glory-hog, but, we should be in there questioning him. He's been our collar from the..."

"No, no," Esposito said shaking his head. "You became his victims, and with that, you forfeit your right to question him."

Olivia sighed and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. "Just as well," she said, downing the rest of her caffeine shot. "Wouldn't get far if it was us in there, and you know it. El, he would have had us talking in circles and you would have gotten fed up and punched his lights out."

He chuckled at her, and then crossed his arms. He felt her lips on his skin, her wet heat engulfing his cock, and he knew that they'd irreversibly entwined their lives. He didn't mind at all. "I guess," he said with a cocky grin and a shrug.

Three heads turned toward the opening metal door, and hearing it slam, they all flinched at once. "Guess it's over," Esposito said, sliding off of the edge of Beckett's desk, where he'd been sitting. "What happened?"

"Full confession," Beckett said proudly. She held up a legal-sized Steno pad. "He wrote it all down, and he signed it. He said..." she squinted a bit and took a breath, figuring out the best words to use. "He said it was payback."

"For what?" Olivia scoffed. "That bastard got what he deserved, and he raped more than..."

Ryan butted in. "He said that you didn't believe him. You questioned his ability to love, and you doubted his intentions toward his wife, Cora." He pointed a finger at Castle, who, up until now, had been staring admiringly at Beckett's ass. "He blamed your father for costing him a federal job, and for being the reason he went to jail in the first place."

"No, Liv and I are the reason he was in jail," Elliot argued. "What I want to know is how the hell did he get out?"

Beckett, handing him a file, said, "He answered that, too. Someone was willing to give him that federal job." She looked at Olivia, then back at Elliot. She took another breath before speaking. "Killing these women...was the job. Government assholes pulled strings, gave him orders." She turned to look at Castle. "It was designed to get Benson, yes, but they also wanted your father."

"i don't get it," Castle shrugged. "I mean, revenge, being out for blood for the bitch who put you behind bars, that is a logical and well-written motive, but throwing in the desire to lure out a covert government agent from a sector we aren't even supposed to be sure really exists? That's when great mystery novels jump the shark! It's far too convoluted and readers won't buy it." He sipped his espresso, and then, as if just noticing the way Beckett was staring at him, he said, "What?"

Beckett rolled her eyes. "This isn't one of your books, Castle," she spat, tossing another file down on the table between Olivia and Elliot, not caring who read it first. "Jergens didn't want your father. The agency that bailed him out and paid him to off people in WitPro wants him. With Jergens back in custody, willing to go down for the murders, they stand no chance of finding him."

Castle heaved a heavy sigh, relieved, and asked, "Did he tell you which clandestine group was behind it?"

"Are you kidding?" Beckett said, snatching the small, ceramic cup from Castle. She pouted when she discovered it was empty. "He's not giving that up. He said they'd kill him if he did, and he'd take his chances with the DA."

Elliot narrowed his eyes. "They got him out once, what says they won't do it again?"

"He's damaged goods," Ryan said, shrugging. "We know his MO, we have him on tight watch at Rikers, and they know getting out again would raise too many red flags. They won't risk it." He eyed Castle for a moment. "Someone has a way to find out, though."

"Hmm, no," Castle said, making a face. "I used my annual contact already."

Beckett stared at him. "You honestly have no idea what agency he works for?"

Castle pursed his lips for a moment. "Last time I talked to him, which was...unpleasant for so many reasons...it was the CIA. But that could have changed. The man quits once every so often, and who knows if this is an ebb or flow for him?"

"Do you always talk like a fucking writer?" Elliot asked, annoyed.

Castle, taken aback, looked at him. "Do you always talk like a sailor?"

"Hey!" Olivia shouted, standing up. "Until we get a definitive answer, this case is frozen. Now, if you two want to have a fucking sliver of possibility in getting to the bottom of how Jergens got out, you need to find away to end this pissing contest and get the fuck along!"

"Correction," Castle said, raising one finger, "She talks like a sailor."

"I talk like a Marine," Olivia corrected. "And I get it from him. So put the tape-measures away, all right?"

Castle made the first move. He held out a hand to Elliot. "I think...we're threatened by each other because...we're a lot alike, you and I."

Elliot eyed him suspiciously, but then he sighed and shook the man's hand. "Yeah, we are." He gave him a curt nod. "Same taste in women, too."

"No," Castle declared. "We just happen to have taste in similar women." He let go of Elliot's surprisingly firm and powerful handshake, wiggling his fingers, and he said, "I think you and I could be friends, Detective. I own a bar a few blocks from her, maybe after we close this case we..."

"Maybe," Elliot said, interrupting. "Thanks." He sat back in his chair and grinned. "Dick."

Olivia shot him a scolding look and rolled her eyes when he laughed. "So, the CIA...who would want a CIA out of the way badly enough to..."

"What if the FBI wanted their own witnesses taken out?" Elliot spoke up. "Think about it! They get Jergens out, tell him who to hit, they conveniently all hail from our jurisdiction and have gone through Sister Peg somehow, they tell Jergens the cover names are based on authors to send a message to Castle, to get to his father."

"That seems very convoluted," Castle said, shaking his head.

Beckett choked. "Pardon me? The king of ridiculous theories thinks that was convoluted? So your theory about secret agents trying to use brain transplants in order to get the facts from the witnesses without needing a trial is just so believable?

Castle grumbled and crossed his arms. "It fits," he defended.

Beckett smiled and shook her head in disbelief. "We should look into the cases these people were involved with, maybe there's a link."

"One step ahead of ya," Espositio said, grinning smugly. "We already looked into that, but at the time, we were just looking for a connection in the MO." He ran over to his desk and picked up the stack of files on the victims. He opened each one and read as fast as he could. "Hey." he said, still flipping printed pages. "Hey, guys...they were all scheduled to testify against Dino Scarpella and Christopher Carlucci."

Olivia choked on air as she heard the name Espositio had just spouted. "What? Um, can you...uh...what did you just say?"

Castle shook his head. "No, no, we had those guys in here a bunch of time. I...I know Dino and he wouldn't have had anything to do with any..."

"Carlucci?" Olivia said, walking over to Esposito. "Are you sure? Christopher Carlucci?"

Esposito nodded at her. "Yeah, positive. What, uh, what's the...you don't look so good, Benson."

Elliot had made his way over to her, and not caring who saw what, he pulled her toward him. "What's got you so spooked, Liv? You look like you've seen a ghost." He shook her a bit. "Talk to me, baby."

She tried to steady her breathing and she gave him a soft kiss, her hands coming up to cup and caress his face, in an attempt to keep him calm. "El," she whispered, and then turned to look at the others, "This is...well, it's definitely the FBI. Christopher Carlucci...is an alias. An agent...that I know, uh, he's undercover. Has been for a while now, and that...that's him."

Elliot gasped slightly and pulled her back toward him. "What are you talking about?" he asked, confused. "Liv, who could you possibly..."

"Dean," she said, cutting him off. Her eyes closed and her dropped to her chest. What seemed like the perfect ending to a hard case turned out to be only the beginning.

 _ **(Vincent Spano played both the characters of Dean Porter on SVU and Christopher Carlucci on Castle, which is the sole inspiration for this storyline and fic. I finally revealed the tie-in that made me think a crossover was possible.)**_

 _ **Reviews are always enjoyable**_

 _ **Peace and love**_

 _ **Jo**_

 _ **MarchCommaJo - Twitter**_


	11. Chapter 11

_**Kindred.**_

 _ **Law and Order: SVU is the intellectual property of Dick Wolf. Castle is the intellectual property of Andrew W. Marlowe. The use of the characters, settings, and plotlines is not malicious. This is a work of fiction.**_

Dean Porter sat on one end of the interrogation table, confused and more pissed off than usual. His icy glare remained fixed on Elliot as his right knee bounced up and down in agitated impatience. "I need to get out of here," he spat. "You have no idea what you're doing. Years of undercover work and dedication..."

"Talk to me," Olivia said, her voice more gentle than the situation required. "Stop looking at him, look at me." She knew he would.

He turned his head, and he calmed down and stopped fidgeting as soon as his eyes met hers. "Hi," he said sheepishly, his shoulders slumping. He knew, at this moment, what Elliot had known for years. Olivia was a very calming presence. "I should have told you. Before."

"Yeah," she said with a single nod. "Would've been nice." She folded her arms. "You know why you're here?"

He shook his head. "I didn't..." he paused. "I mean, I knew that phone call wasn't a social one, but..." he swallowed. He tilted her head and sighed, and then said, "Well, tell me." He blinked up at her. "Why am I here?"

Olivia, saying nothing, dropped autopsy photos in front of him, one at a time, watching his eyes widen and fall with every new image. "That's why," she said.

"So, you know?" Dean questioned. He ran his hand down his face, paling, and he began to sweat. "This...this isn't good. They weren't supposed to...you were never supposed to..."

"You've gotten away with murder before," Elliot interrupted, sneering. "In fact, you've killed people to save your sorry ass! So this has you written all over it." He leaned against the metal table and dropped to look Dean in the eyes. "Listen, asshole, you're not walking out of here with a slap on the wrist. Not this time. You're going down for this, all of it, unless you prove you didn't make the call to have these people killed."

"Raped," Olivia corrected, tapping a finger on the top photo, watching Dean's eyes shoot toward it. "And killed." She shook her head and folded her arms. "You had to know this would get to us, eventually."

Dean's eyes clouded over and he gave her an apologetic look. "No," he said, "I had no idea. It was a different jurisdiction, and the...I wasn't behind this, but the bureau knew, though. They knew that if these people testified against me...against Carlucci...I would have to tell the truth, under oath, and blow my cover." He turned up his eyes and he grabbed her hand with both of his, hoping some part of her could still be swayed by emotion. He looked into her eyes, imploringly and pathetically, as his own filled with tears. "Believe me, Liv, please, they would have killed me. We couldn't take the chance of..."

"Eight people," Elliot hissed, pounding his fist on the table. He grinned smugly as he watched Dean jerk away from Olivia and wince in fear. "Eight innocent people, who were already running from someone trying to kill them, are dead, mutilated. Your goons had them killed, to save your punk ass? I'm sorry, you are not God's gift to the FBI and I'm pretty sure whatever case your working, you have enough..."

"Stabler," Dean shouted, standing, "You have no fucking idea! It wasn't my call, and I couldn't stop it! You got the bastard who killed them, leave it alone!" He turned toward Olivia. "Please, just...drop it. You don't need anyone else, you have your killer."

"He was after me," Olivia said, hoping to play to the part of him that still harbored feelings for her. "So, yeah, we do need someone else. Who bailed him out, Dean? Which one of your corrupt bosses pulled the strings?"

Dean walked over to her, fear in his eyes. "What do you mean, after you? He...what did he do to you?"

Olivia backed away from him, clearing her throat. "I was next on his list, let's put it that way." She eyed Elliot for a moment, and then spoke. "I'm only gonna ask this once, Dean. And if you can't answer me, then every ill-thought I had about you...I'll know was right. Who gave the order to get Jergens out of..."

"Don't," Dean whined, a painful expression on his face. "You know I can't...don't ask. Just let it go."

"You know I can't," she returned, spitting his own protestation back at him.

Dean bit his lip and wrung his hands together. "If I tell you...I need some kind of promise of protection here. No one finds out I'm the one who told you, can you do that for me?"

She said nothing as she offered him a grim, flat expression. "Whatever, I need a name. After everything you put us through, you owe us that much."

"Sorenson," Dean said in a whisper.

Elliot made a face. "What?" he asked, "Little louder, pal."

Dean took a slow breath and let it out with his eyes closed. "Sorenson," he said. "Will Sorenson. He used to work abductions but he got promoted after some bitch broke his heart and he threw himself into his work." He turned back to Olivia. "I can relate. But some people learn to move on faster than others, right?"

Olivia rolled her eyes and moved toward the table, beginning to clear away the photos. "Thanks," she said, "You need to see Munch on your way out, he's escorting you just in case you're being watched. He knows he has to call you by your alias, if anyone is listening..."

"Wait," Dean said, wagging a finger at her. "You...that's all you...you're not gonna give me a chance to explain my side of..."

"No," she interrupted. "I don't need your reasons. You once told me...our feelings don't matter." She smirked at him. "So I don't give a shit how you feel, right now. You used me, a couple of times. Didn't care about the fallout." She gritted her teeth. "Payback's a bitch."

Dean's jaw dropped and he looked infuriated. "That's...that wasn't fair! You knew I would...that I would still..."

"And that's why we have such a solid record," she interjected again, waving a finger from herself to Elliot and back again. "Go, now, before I book you on another accessory charge."

Elliot couldn't help the beaming smile that spread across his face, and he knew what he had to do. He ran over to Dean before he left the room, and he leaned into him a bit. "You know...even if you did still, uh, have a thing for her, she's seeing someone, so..." he shrugged, an apparent truce.

Dean whispered back, "Yeah? Good, uh, good for her. Who?"

Elliot chuckled. "Oh, man, are you really asking? You don't...you don't know?"

"Just, fuck, who is it, Stabler?" Dean asked, his face coming to an annoyed point. "Not that I care, but I..."

"Me," Elliot told him, nodding proudly and slapping him on the back. It made his chest swell and he stood a little taller, finally being able to put Dean Porter in his place, once and for all. "Be careful out there, Porter. FBI doesn't seem to like loose ends." He squinted at Dean. "Neither do I."

"Is that a threat?" Dean asked, narrowing his own eyes now.

Elliot simply smiled. "Oh, I don't make threats." He opened the door and waited, and then jerked his head, ordering Dean to leave.

Defeated, Porter left, not even throwing a glance over his shoulder at Olivia.

Elliot held the door open for his partner, and as she stepped beside him, he whispered, "That's my girl."

She smiled at him, and her pulse quickened. "Let's go bag us a bogus agent, shall we?" She saw the way he was looking at her, and if they didn't get out of the interrogation room, they'd get into trouble.

"What happened?" Beckett asked, watching the pair walk into the squad room. "What did he tell you? Did he give it up?"

Olivia nodded, handing the photos back to Ryan, who rolled his eyes and laughed as he became relegated to secretarial work. "He did."

"Guy's name is Will Sorenson," Elliot said, crossing his arms and leaning against Esposito's desk. "Some higher up in the organized crime..."

"Sorenson?" Beckett cracked, her body stiff and her eyes wide. "No, no, that...he wouldn't...he...would never."

Castle grabbed her arm. "You okay?" he asked, knowing why she was so flustered.

Beckett nodded. "We just keep becoming more tangled in this fucking mess, don't we?" she said, attempting a laugh. "I'll...I'll make the call." She felt Castle's hand run down her arm and she took a brief moment to grab it, squeeze, and look into his eyes. The closest they could get to "I love you" at work.

Castle sighed as she pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and walked away, dialing. He turned back to the group, giving him a collective, confused stare. He pointed to Beckett, gave them a questioning look, and then understood. "Ex-boyfriend," he said. "Anyone want a cup of espresso?" He casually gestured to the break room and looked around.

Esposito made a pensive face as he twirled his pen between his fingers. "Hell of a coincidence, huh? Benson's ex and Beckett's both involved in this?"

Elliot looked at Olivia, who was giving him an understanding smile. "Ya know, we always say..."

"There's no such thing as coincidence," Olivia finished. She bit her lip and nodded at Castle, and then followed him into the break room.

Elliot gazed appreciatively at her ass as he righted himself and stepped in line behind her. He let his mind wander for a bit, as he licked his lips in response to Olivia's swaying hips. Something, at that moment, hit him. Hard. "Hey," he called to Castle, "That bar were you talking about? I think...I think I'll take you up on that drink."

 _ **(Vincent Spano played both the characters of Dean Porter on SVU and Christopher Carlucci on Castle, which is the sole inspiration for this storyline and fic. I finally revealed the tie-in that made me think a crossover was possible.)**_

 _ **Reviews are always enjoyable**_

 _ **Peace and love**_

 _ **Jo**_

 _ **MarchCommaJo - Twitter**_


	12. Chapter 12

_**Debunked.**_

 _ **Law and Order: SVU is the intellectual property of Dick Wolf. Castle is the intellectual property of Andrew W. Marlowe. The use of the characters, settings, and plotlines is not malicious. This is a work of fiction.**_

Castle swirled an amber colored liquid around in a short glass, eyeing the man next to him suspiciously. "Stop looking at your phone," he said, downing what was in his glass. "See, that is what's wrong with society. No one knows how to be physically social, or handle face-to-face..."

"I'm here," Elliot interrupted. "I was checking to see...Liv hasn't texted me, yet, and she said that if..."

Castle signaled the bartender for a second round of drinks as he interrupted Elliot's explanation. "If anyone can crack Sorenson, it's my wife. You don't need to worry about anything, with Ryan and Esposito there..."

"I should be there," Elliot cut him off and nodded gratefully at the bartender. "What is this shit, anyway?" he asked, an afterthought as he'd already thrown back two glasses of whatever it was. He took a hard sip, making a face, and pressed his lips together.

"Something I learned," Castle began, reaching over to an ice bucket, "When things with Beckett and I became...personal...is that you've got to loosen the reins a little bit."

Elliot watched as Castle dropped two ice cubes into his glass and he mumbled a quick thanks. He blinked, and then scratched at the stubble forming on his chin. "It's different with me and Liv. I really am her partner, I'm not just following her around like a lost..."

Castle glared at Elliot and his tone grew annoyed. "What I meant..." he hissed, "Was that when were...just colleagues...it was okay for me to step on her toes and look over her shoulder, I used the excuse that I was learning, studying her, but when you take that next step...something shifts, Stabler, and the trust deepens, and then any second guessing or standing in the shadows could give them the impression that it hasn't."

Elliot stared, stupefied, at Castle. "What?" he squinted. "I...what? This has nothing to do with me trusting Liv to handle things on her own, okay? We've worked apart before, and thought it fucking killed us, we got the job done, and unless she was..." he stopped, swallowing back a latent fear and sick feeling in his stomach. "Look, I need to be there because it's my case, and I..."

"Technically, it isn't," Castle spouted, holding up a finger. He grinned as he took a drink, and after he licked his lips he said, "You and Detective Benson are only a part of this because your daughter called you in, and after we found out there was a huge connection between you and the case, well, you stayed on out of professional courtesy. It was never in your..."

"Do you listen to yourself when you speak?" Elliot asked, staring at Castle. He took another sip of his drink and winced. "Seriously, what the hell is this?"

Castle smiled, holding his glass up and letting the light filter through the auburn alcohol. "1904 Marquis de Montesquiou, vintage aramagnac," he spoke with reverence for the liquor. He waited for some kind of 'ooh' or 'ahh' from Elliot, but when he didn't get one, he said, "It's the Shakespeare of brandy! Only a handful of bottles left in existence, and it runs at..."

"Don't tell me," Elliot rolled his eyes again, sipping. "It'll only make me hate you." He looked down at his glass and he bit his lip. "When did you know?"

Castle smiled, nodding in approval at Elliot's interest in fine wines and spirits. "Well, I started drinking this particular vintage when I graduated from..."

"Not about this shit," Elliot spat, making a flabbergasted face at him. "When did you know you were in love with Beckett?"

"Oh," Castle said, taken aback. He bit his lip and tilted his head. "Do you want the long, romantic..."

"I want the truth," Elliot said, cutting him off, and he turned on his bar stool and drummed his fingers along the side of his glass. "When did you really...know?"

Castle smiled and he took a deep breath, letting it out slowly as his eyes closed. "The moment I met her," he said quietly. He opened his eyes and shook his head, still grinning. "There was a lot of flirting, a vein attempt to deny that what I was feeling was anything more than a strong desire to make her my next conquest," he explained. "But before I knew it, the flirting was rooted in truth, every time I looked at her...I wanted her in my bed, yeah, of course, but more than that I wanted her there when I woke up in the morning. Her life became more important than mine, her past became my priority and her future became my responsibility. My world began and ended with her, and nothing...no one else mattered." He took a slow sip of his brandy, and then looked at Elliot. "I can't give you an exact moment, Stabler, but what I can tell you is this: when I realized I loved her, I also realized there would never be another woman in the world that could rip me away from her, no one else would ever make me feel the way I feel when I'm with her, and for the rest of my life...it would be my job, and only mine, to make sure her every need is met, her every wish is fulfilled, and to make sure...that she loves me as much as I her."

Elliot stared at him for a long moment, taking in his words, and he turned back toward the bar. He lifted the brandy to his lips again and drank it fast. "We aren't that different after all," he said, shaking off the sour burn of his drink. "What you just said...yeah. Ditto. Only, ya know, Liv, not...not Beckett."

"I know," Castle laughed, nodding. "When did you know?" he returned the question with an emphasized word and hard nod.

Elliot stayed silent for a few seconds, turning the glass around in circles on the bar, his lip caught between his teeth. "I realized I was in love with her a long...long time ago," he said. "I just didn't realize I realized it until..." he laughed at himself. "Look at me, I can't even find three fucking words for it, and you...you spouted a fucking novel."

"I'm a writer," Castle shrugged. "Just say it, flat and honest, that's all anyone can ask of you, right?"

With another nod and another deep breath, Elliot said, "This is new, ya know? Being with her...the way I am now. It's new, but it's...not new. I've been in love with her for a long time, but I couldn't do anything about it, I was married, I didn't think..."

"If I could see how in love with you she is, when I'd only known her for two days, then you knew," Castle interjected. "You knew, Stabler. It just scared you, am I right?"

"No," Elliot said, flat and honest, the way Castle had told him to speak. "It didn't scare me, it...it made me feel...less afraid. It was everything I wanted, needed, and I guess...maybe that's why I ignored it for so long. I didn't think it was really there, I thought I was imagining it all."

Castle smiled, understanding. "I did that a lot," he admitted. "Didn't stop me from laying on the charm and trying like hell to make her see me as more than just the annoying writer who followed her around like a lost puppy, as you were going to say." He took the last sip of his drink and placed the empty glass on the bar. "How do you feel now?"

Elliot laughed. "Can you believe I still wake up in the morning thinking it's all a dream?" He scraped his teeth along his bottom lip again. "She's...she's everything. Like you said, my world begins and ends with her, there's never gonna be anyone else, ever, she has...my heart, my soul, my...my life in her hands, and if I ever lose her..."

"You won't," a whispered tremble hit his ears and he turned, stunned. "I'm not nearly drunk enough to be hallucinating," he mumbled, rubbing his eyes.

She laughed and captured his face in her hands. "You're not," she told him, pulling forward, bringing his face closer to hers. She kissed him, her shoulders jostling as she laughed against his lips, loving the weak moans and whimpers he gave.

He pulled away reluctantly, wrapping his arms around her as she stood in front of him. His head fell forward, into his chest, and he spoke, though his words were muffled.

She laughed again and pushed his head back. "Try that again," she said, kissing his forehead.

"I said I missed you," he told her. "What are you doing here?"

"Castle told Beckett where you were going," she replied. "She's here, too. She's, uh, in the bathroom. What the hell have you been drinking? You smell like my English Lit professor."

He laughed and stood up, and then gestured for her to take his seat. "Some expensive shit Castle keeps pouring into my glass," he shrugged.

"It's 1904 Marquis de Montesquiou, vintage aramagnac," Castle declared proudly. "How did it go with Sorenson?"

Olivia's face fell, her brief joy now nothing but a mere memory. She ran a hand through her hair, peeling apart tangles as she toyed with the waves. "He made us sign NDAs," she said, biting her lip. She grabbed Elliot's glass, causing him to give her a wide-eyed look, but before he could stop her, she drank what was left. She made a face, squeezing her eyes shut and grimacing. "Holy shit," she spat, wiping her lips. "Really?"

Castle laughed and shrugged. "It's an acquired taste," he mused.

"Can I just get a Guinness or something?" she asked, looking at Elliot. She dropped her head onto him as he wrapped himself around her. "We can't touch him," she whispered into the crook of his neck. "There's not a damn thing we can do..." she hissed, her forgotten agitation now permeating every part of her again. She needed that drink, now. "He apologized, said he had no idea Jergens would come after us. Fucking federal bullshit, he said he was done, they did what they had to do, and..."

"Non-disclosure agreements don't have loopholes," Elliot whispered to her, stopping her before she got herself into trouble. He brushed her hair back and reached over her to the bar, grabbing the beer that was just placed in front of her. "Here," he said, handing it to her.

She nodded her thanks and took a long sip, and then sighed, turning her head to look at him. "Long story short," she breathed, taking another swig of her beer, "We're done. Case closed. Dean was right, we got the killer, that's all we really needed."

Elliot kissed the top of her head and dragged his fingers through her hair, seeing Beckett take a seat next to Castle out of the corner of his eye. "You okay, Detective?" he asked, looking over at her.

She shrugged and tapped the bar, eyeing the man by the ice chest. She raised two fingers, and in moments two filled glasses were dropped in front of her and Castle. She held one up and waited.

Castle smiled at her and lifted his own glass, tapping it against hers before they took a simultaneous drink. "Cheers, I guess."

Beckett laughed as she swallowed. She looked over at Elliot, smiling as she saw that they'd re-positioned, he on the stool and her in his lap. "Well, how would you feel if you found out someone that was once so important to you...wasn't who you thought they were, at all?"

"Did that," Elliot said, taking Olivia's beer and taking a sip. He handed back to her with a nod. "Got a divorce."

The group laughed and shared a few smiles. "Where are Ryan and Esposito?" Castle asked, as if just realizing they were missing.

"They stayed behind to deal with the paperwork," Beckett said, taking another sip of brandy. She moaned and nodded, and then she said, "I didn't want to read back everything..." she shook her head. "It's in the past, anyway, right? Now, the four of us can move on. Onto bigger and better things."

"Yeah, you can finally get the hell out of our precinct," Castle joked, "Because I don't think we could afford to keep up with your coffee habit, Benson."

More shared laughter pervaded the air between the couples, but then Olivia looked at Castle. "Thank you," she said, her eyes dropping to her beer as soon as the words left her mouth. "If you hadn't..." she paused. "This whole thing...working with you, and Beckett, it...changed my life." She felt Elliot squeezing her tightly, and she knew he was listening. "Our lives," she corrected, wrapping her hands around his arms.

Castle shrugged. "All I did was tell the truth," he said with a genuine smile and polite nod. "I may be an award-winning, best-selling novelist, but I am one crappy liar." He sipped his drink. "I'm usually right, though, so when people are faced with honest truth, they have two choices. Ignore it and continue to live in misery, or face it, head on, and deal with what happens next."

Elliot cleared his throat. "I'm sure we would have eventually, uh, told each other the...the truth," he hiccuped and pushed the half empty bottle of beer away from him, exhaling harshly.

Olivia laughed at him. "But how long would we have been waiting?" she asked. "We owe him, El."

"You owe me nothing," Castle assured, signaling the bartender for one final round. "You've already given me two new characters for my novels, they'll be recurring, and you'll get royalties if they aren't killed off by the fourth..."

"I'm sorry," Elliot chuckled. "What?"

Castle grinned as he took Beckett's hand. "Detective Nikki Heat stumbles on a case that another department has their hands in," he said with a short laugh. He kissed his wife and turned back toward Olivia and Elliot. "Detectives Olivia Hart and James Elliot have to work with her to get their bad guy, or risk doing major damage to their careers." He gave Elliot a narrow-eyed look. "When you get to page two-hundred-and-seventy-five, you can tell me if the reality is better than the fiction." He winked, but then said, "I promise, it's done respectfully and it's intrinsic to the plot. One-hundred-percent necessary."

"Oh, my God," Elliot muttered, rolling his eyes. "You really shouldn't have..."

"How else was I going to convince the mayor that, uh, Beckett and I needed to work with you at least twice a year?" Castle queried, a drink in his hand and a smirk on his face. "You're officially on the Richard Castle Inspiration Docket."

Olivia looked at Elliot, then at Beckett, and she saw the younger detective smile at her. She nodded, returning the grin. "You sure you want that?" she asked, looking at Castle. "You and Elliot don't exactly see eye-to-eye, I mean, I'm tied to him for life, but you...you can walk away and not look back, and no one would blame you."

"Hey," Elliot scoffed, grabbing her chin. "We actually do get along. Well, like, sort of."

"Uh-huh," she teased, nodding, letting him kiss her.

Castle watched them for a moment, but then turned to Beckett. "I couldn't let it be the last time you got to do that," he said.

"What?" she replied, brushing his hair back.

He kissed her sweetly. "Work with someone you idolize," he said with a smug grin. "You're welcome, by the way. I knew you'd want another opportunity to see her in action, and..."

His words were silenced by her lips. She smiled against his mouth and her hands wound in his hair. "I love you," she whispered.

He kissed her back just as eagerly, and with a wink and a smirk, he whispered, "I love you, too." He shot another look over toward his new friends, and he was truly grateful that fate, by way of the job he and his wife gave their lives to, had bound them so tightly together. He sighed happily and then kissed Beckett's lips once more. He whispered, softly, against her lips, "Always."

 _ **Reviews are always enjoyable**_

 _ **Peace and love**_

 _ **Jo**_

 _ **MarchCommaJo - Twitter**_


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